Nearly half the manmade objects orbiting Earth are chunks of “uncontrollable” space junk — with just three countries fueling the problem and endangering future space travel, a shocking new study found.
At least 15,587 of the 33,269 tracked objects circling the planet are discarded debris from space launches — meaning a whopping 47% of the stuff hurtling around the planet is potentially hazardous junk, according to a May report from the engineering supply company Accu.
Those objects include at least 2,396 discarded rocket bodies — sometimes hundreds of feet across in length — 12,550 expended launch components which can vary in size and shape, and 641 objects which haven’t been classified.
The other 17,682 objects are “payloads” — satellites ranging from the likes of SpaceX’s StarLink networks to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
But some of those payload satellites are out of commission, which only adds to the amount of junk orbiting Earth.
And most alarmingly, many of those bodies of heavy metal junk are whipping around the planet at nearly 20,000 mph every day — posing an enormous risk to other space missions, experts said.
“Nearly half of all tracked objects already fall into categories with no control or purpose,” wrote the Accu report, which collated data from the US Space Force’s Space-Track.org for its study.
“As a result, spacecraft must now be designed with greater tolerance to debris impacts and more robust shielding, as even a tiny fragment can destroy an entire mission,” the report said.
The warning is no exaggeration: In 2016, a fleck of paint or metal just a fraction of a millimeter across left a 7mm-long gouge in a window of the International Space Station.
A piece of debris just 10 cm across is enough to blast a satellite to pieces, while a 1 cm bit of junk is considered sufficient to knock a spacecraft out of commission — or even break through the shields of the Space Station, according to the European Space Station.
Astronauts have even been required to seek shelter while in orbit because of debris in the past — with the ISS crew notably retreating to a more secure location onboard in 2021 when it passed dangerously close to a cloud of Russian junk.
A similar situation happened in November when a Chinese spacecraft was believed to have been struck by debris, leaving three astronauts stuck in space while the damage was assessed.
Space junk is also a problem which could compound itself — with one collision leading to more collisions and debris, which could then spark a chain reaction of destruction that shreds everything in Earth’s orbit to pieces.
It’s a situation known among astronautical engineers as the “Kessler Syndrome” and could jeopardize humanity’s very ability to operate in space.
“It could continue until the entire orbital space is covered with space junk, making parts of space too crowded and risky for satellites and future missions,” the report read.
The number of orbiting hazards is also on the rise, according Accu’s study, which found the amount of manmade objects entering Earth’s orbit has increased steadily beginning with the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik I in 1957 — but skyrocketed in 2015, when the private space industry began to take off.
“The number of objects in space has climbed sharply ever since,” the report read. “This means space is getting more crowded and debris is accumulating faster than it can be removed.”
It’s a problem that’s being fueled almost entirely by just three actors: China, the United States and the Russia-centric Commonwealth of Independent States formed across Eurasia after the fall of the USSR.
Those three countries and groups account for a shocking 96% of the trackable junk orbiting Earth — with China leading the pack at 34%, and the CIS and US close behind at 31% each.
Both the CIS and US have historically left behind more junk than China, but the vast majority has fallen from orbit to burn up in the atmosphere, while China’s has remained around the planet, according to the report.
“The space debris crisis is no longer just an environmental challenge, it’s becoming a critical technical problem for engineers, affecting how they design and operate spacecraft,” the report read. “This is set to become an even bigger problem in the future as more satellites are launched and space gets more crowded.”
Several technologies are being developed to address the problem, with private companies such Astroscale ClearSpace joining agencies including NASA in the design and deployment of counter measures.
Methods under development include deploying sails which create drag in the high atmosphere to accelerate the breakdown of a satellite’s orbit, blasting debris with lasers known as “brooms” to alter orbits and drop debris into the atmosphere to burn up, and magnetic systems which collect the debris for removal.
“From the scale and speed of debris, to the rising density of objects in orbit and the contribution of major space actors, it is clear that the risks are accelerating,” the report read.
“Space debris is a key challenge of the modern space age, but how it is tackled will drive innovation and define the future of space exploration.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
