Near-Earth space is becoming more accessible. To launch your own satellite into orbit, hundreds of millions of dollars are no longer needed - dozens are needed, and soon Ilon Mask promises to reduce the cost of launching a launch vehicle by almost an order of magnitude. Well, the more spacecraft a person launches into orbit, the more they become, respectively - the dependence is very simple.
And not all owners and operators of satellites calculate their trajectory so that they, completing their work cycle, fall back to Earth, burning in the atmosphere. Now there are hundreds of spacecraft in orbit around the planet that have been in for many, many years. Even more - parts of such systems: debris, pieces of exfoliated paint, etc.
In the US, there is a specialized space debris monitoring service. Its experts have
cataloged more than 19,000 objects that are in different orbits. And these are quite large items. Small - much more, hundreds of thousands. Small objects are those that are about 1 cm in size or slightly larger. What are they dangerous? About it on Habré said more than once. The fact is that, traveling at a speed of hundreds of thousands of kilometers per hour, they pose a serious threat to existing spacecraft and rockets. One such object, less than a millimeter in size,
nearly broke through the porthole on the ISS.
The US National Space Council is planning to launch a new tracking system for particles of space debris in the near future. Earlier this week, the executive secretary of the space council, Scott Pace, outlined some of the nuances of the coming changes. In particular, he said that the fight against space debris is part of the US policy related to the exploration of outer space. And safe movement in space fully meets the interests of the state.
Here we can say that, of course, not only the United States is interested in the absence of space debris around the Earth. All this is in the interests of any space power or company that is planning to carry out any activity in space.
But in the US, the fight against space debris has become a matter of national importance. Formed a special document called Space Policy Directive-3. The document points out the need to modernize the current space debris monitoring system, as well as to develop methods to combat it. These are the duties assigned to the Ministry of Defense. In one way or another, representatives of other ministries are involved in the implementation of the provisions of the new policy.
The initiative of the United States supported the governments of several countries, as well as many organizations. “I think this is a big step in the right direction,”
said Brian Wieden, head of one of the areas of the Secure World Foundation.
Now the main actions of the participants of the new program will be directed to ensure that a minimum number of new objects, which are part of space debris, appear in orbit. The ultimate goal is to promote the commercial sector, that is, companies that are somehow connected with outer space, satellites, space tourism and other areas of exploration of near-Earth space.
By the way, it is not yet known how the new policy will affect the plans of some companies to create a global Internet network. The implementation of these plans is to send hundreds or even thousands of satellites into Earth orbit. From a great height, the satellites will cover the entire surface of the planet with a wireless network that will allow even residents of remote and hard-to-reach regions to connect to the Internet.
As for Russia, the country also offers some methods of dealing with space debris, those objects that are already in orbit. In particular, Roscosmos proposed to create a laser gun in order to evaporate debris particles. The “weapon” is proposed to be installed onboard the ISS. And you can make such a gun from an optical telescope, after modifying it.
By the way, the Russian Space Monitoring System
monitors only 13,000 objects of artificial origin. According to Russian experts, seven thousand objects with a size of more than 20 centimeters are moving in low near-earth orbit (from 160 to 2000 km) and another 6 thousand objects with a size of 20-40 centimeters are in high (from 2000 to 50 000 km) near-earth orbit.