![]() The Assyrian Empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea Ashurnasirpal II's palace was adorned with ivory and stone reliefs, which showed the king hunting, fighting and taking part in religious rituals. (Image credit: Public domain, courtesy of Wikipedia)Īn ancient city in Iraq, Nimrud became the capital of the Assyrian Empire during the reign of King Ashurnasirpal II (reign 883 B.C. “It’s not as glamorous as Gravity, but it’s much more likely, and it’ll have a much greater effect on people.An ancient city in Iraq, Nimrud became the capital of the Assyrian Empire during the reign of King Ashurnasirpal II (reign 883 B.C. That’s an impact on global economy, connectivity, remote-sensing, disaster management, and financial transactions. “It’s the fact that operational satellites will not function realiably due to the large number of lethal non-trackable debris. “Our concern in the next ten years is not the Kessler syndrome,” says McKnight. But while most people think of the movie Gravity, and how that depicted a threat known as the Kessler syndrome – a chain reaction of collisions – such a scenario is likely centuries away. McKnight and his colleagues hope their paper will make people aware of the huge danger space junk poses in orbit, and the urgent need to tackle the problem. Many want governments to take firmer action in cleaning up space junk, and ensure future generations have the same access to space afforded to us today. “The idea is if you see this close approach coming, go ahead and nudge one of the objects to avoid a collision.”Ĭurrently, while the United Nations has a loose guideline for companies and countries to remove their own space debris within 25 years, these guidelines are not enforced. ![]() “Just-in-time collision avoidance, long-term debris management, and nanotugs are three different approaches,” says McKnight. In order to deal with these larger objects, it may be necessary to come up ways to make sure they avoid colliding rather than trying to remove them from orbit, since their re-entry would pose a significant risk. However, the paper notes “that 37 objects of the top 50 list have a mass greater than 2,000 kilograms,” most notably the large Russian rocket boosters left orbiting Earth. Several proposals have been put forward in recent years to do this, such as by the Japanese company Astroscale and the British RemoveDEBRIS project, which would grab dead objects and pull them into the atmosphere. The purpose of the paper is to highlight which objects we should aim to target first in our efforts to clean up space junk from Earth orbit. The vast majority of the objects are from Russian Zenit rockets (launch in 2009 shown). In total, 43 of the objects on the list are of Russian origin, comprising 35 rocket boosters and eight satellites. The rest of the list is almost entirely composed of Russian rocket boosters and satellites, along with two Japanese rocket boosters, one Chinese rocket booster, and one French rocket booster. Also rating highly was the Russian Meteor 3M satellite, launched in 2001, and Japan’s ADEOS I and II satellites, launched in 19. The list also includes several satellites, with the European Space Agency’s defunct ENVISAT satellite launched in 2002 – weighing in at 7,800 kilograms and orbiting at an altitude of 765 kilometers – deemed to be the highest risk. And the cumulative probability is going up.” “And these clusters have been formed for decades,” says McKnight. These boosters also orbit together in clusters, meaning they remain on similar orbital paths to one another. But it’s not a one in a million possibility, it’s one in a thousand each year.” That’s the most consequential event that is possible. “You would make 15,000 trackable objects. “Two 9,000 kilogram objects hitting would double the low Earth orbit debris population in one instance,” says McKnight. Were two of these boosters to collide, the resultant debris produced could be catastrophic. These SL-16 R/B boosters each weigh 9,000 kilograms and orbit at altitudes above 800 kilometers. The first 20 objects on the list are all large rocket boosters launched by Russia and the Soviet Union (referred to as the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS) between 19.
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