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How Space Junk Is Going To Cost Us — Big Time
1
John Csiszar
April 6, 2021 · 4 min read
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When mankind began launching satellites into low-Earth orbit, major
strides were made in everything from telecommunications and
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astronomy, to military security. However, the combination of currently
orbiting, functional satellites and miscellaneous discarded space junk
like spent rocket boosters is rapidly climbing out of control. NASA and
other space agencies are already well aware of the problem and are
devising methods to deal with it, but the average American might not
be aware of the extent of the issue. Here’s a quick overview of the
problem of space junk and how much it’s going to cost us going
forward.
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There are currently about 6,250 satellites in orbit. That amount alone
is enough to create a problem, but the number is about to jump up
dramatically. The SpaceX Starlink project, developed by Elon Musk,
hopes to get an additional 12,000 small satellites into orbit by 2027.
While potentially providing internet coverage for vast areas of the
globe, these Starlink satellites are also going to further clutter up lowEarth orbit. Both optical and radio telescope scientists have already
decried the project for interfering with their observations.
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Space Junk and Potentially Damaging Objects
In addition to the number of satellites currently in orbit, there is plenty
of “junk” flying around in low-Earth orbit, and that is of increasing
concern. There are currently 34,000 debris objects of 10 centimeters
or larger, 23,000 of which are tracked for collision avoidance purposes.
The 10-centimeter size, which is roughly 4 inches, is important because
according to scientists, a collision between an active satellite and an
object of this size “will most likely result in catastrophic destruction of
the satellite,” according to the U.S. government’s National Orbital
Debris Research and Development Plan. On top of these clearly
destructive objects, there are over 100 million debris objects at least 1
millimeter in size, which can also cause damage when orbiting at
17,500 miles per hour. The number of low-Earth orbit debris objects
has increased by 50% in just the last five years.
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Cost To Clean Up Space Junk
ClearSpace-1, set to launch in 2025, is the first autonomous mission
ever developed to remove space debris. At a cost of $118 million, this
spacecraft is just the first of what may have to be many costly space
missions to clear out low-Earth orbit. As the 2021 budget for the Office
of Space Commerce, which identifies “orbital debris” as one of its focus
areas, is just $10 million, it may be some time before significant
progress is made in cleaning up space junk. But there’s no doubt that
additional funds will be spent, as the risk to satellites is too great. A
weather-tracking satellite, for example, can cost $290 million or more
to build, resulting in a significant financial loss in the event of a
collision. Even the International Space Station had to change its orbit
three times in 2020 alone to avoid a collision with space debris.
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Space junk is obviously a problem, in terms of danger to existing
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satellites and overall costs. But there’s perhaps even a greater longterm problem that awaits the human race as a whole. In 1978, NASA
scientist Donald Kessler proposed a theoretical problem that became
known as the Kessler Syndrome. According to Kessler, there will come a
time when the density of objects orbiting the Earth becomes so great
that collisions between them will result in a downward spiral of
collisions creating additional space junk. At some point, the debris field
would become so dense that low-Earth orbit would become unusable,
and even worse, mankind could never leave the planet safely. Thus,
handling the space junk problem now could help avoid a catastrophic
future in which we become prisoners on our own planet.
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Last updated: April 6, 2021
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How Space
Junk Is Going To Cost Us — Big Time
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