Experts call for a sustainable future in space, say defunct satellites pose critical problem
The continuing growth in space debris poses an urgent threat to economically and scientifically vital orbital regions, experts agree. The recently held conference on the matter highlighted the need for coordinated international action to ensure the long-term sustainability of spaceflight.
An estimated 750,000 objects larger than 1 cm and a staggering 166 million objects larger than 1 mm are thought to reside in commercially and scientifically valuable Earth orbits. The call for international action came on the final day of the European Conference on Space Debris, a gathering of over 350 participants from science, academia, industry and space agencies worldwide held at ESA’s mission control centre, where the ESA Space Debris Office and the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme are based.
Researchers present confirmed there is now a critical need to remove defunct satellites from orbit before they disintegrate and generate even more debris.
loading...
“This means urgently developing the means for actively removing debris, targeting about 10 large defunct satellites from orbit each year, beginning as soon as possible – starting later will not be nearly as effective. Space debris threaten all working satellites, including Europe’s Sentinels and the Galileo navigation constellation, and any loss of space infrastructure would severely affect modern society,” Holger Krag, head of ESA’s debris office, said.
Since 1957, more than 5,250 launches have led to a population today of more than 23,000 tracked debris objects in orbit. Only about 1,200 are working satellites – the rest are debris and no longer serve any useful purpose.
Numerous novel solutions were presented during the 7th European Conference on Space Debris to support important mitigation measures. Many presentations emphasized that execution of these measures – like a change in the operational paradigm to consider space-object disposal as an important part of the overall mission – is becoming ever more important in view of the upcoming mega-constellations of thousands of satellites in low orbit.
Loading...