- Debris from burning satellites could be affecting Earth’s magnetic field Space.com
- Controversial paper claims satellite ‘megaconstellations’ like SpaceX’s could weaken Earth’s magnetic field and cause ‘atmospheric stripping.’ Should we be worried? Livescience.com
- Controversial new paper suggests satellites falling to earth could weaken planet’s magnetic field, sounding al Daily Mail
- Paper Claims Dying SpaceX Satellites Could Weaken Earth’s Magnetic Field Futurism
- Dead satellites falling to Earth could weaken its magnetic field Metro.co.uk
Tag Archives: debris
Photos show European satellite tumbling to its fiery doom after a first-of-a-kind maneuver that prevented a lot of space trash and falling debris on Earth – Business Insider Africa
- Photos show European satellite tumbling to its fiery doom after a first-of-a-kind maneuver that prevented a lot of space trash and falling debris on Earth Business Insider Africa
- Watch The Stunning Footage Of A Satellite Burning Up In Earth’s Atmosphere Giant Freakin Robot
- Pics show European satellite moments before it crashed on Earth | ESA created an animation from final 8 images | Inshorts Inshorts
- Fiery Finale: Final Images of the Doomed Aeolus Spacecraft SciTechDaily
- Amazing Images Show Final Moments of Satellite Before It Burns Up Completely Futurism
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Titan sub debris field: Parts of missing sub’s cover found, expert says – BBC
- Titan sub debris field: Parts of missing sub’s cover found, expert says BBC
- Live updates | Coast Guard will continue searching sea floor for clues on what happened to Titan The Associated Press
- Titanic sub missing – LIVE: Expert claims ‘debris’ found is ‘landing frame and rear cover of submersible’ Yahoo News
- As the clock ticks on the Titan sub, an expert explains what safety features a submersible should have The Conversation
- Experts raised safety concerns about missing Titanic sub in 2018 South China Morning Post
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Indiana’s recycling plant fire is mostly out, but evacuations remain as crews monitor air quality and clear debris from schools and homes – CNN
- Indiana’s recycling plant fire is mostly out, but evacuations remain as crews monitor air quality and clear debris from schools and homes CNN
- Richmond Toxic Fire: City to offer free cleaning kits to residents, discuss lift of evacuation order WHIO
- EPA begins debris removal process in Indiana, Ohio WDTN.com
- Focus turns to getting displaced Richmond residents home as firefighters control blaze Palladium-Item
- Hundreds still waiting for OK to go home after Indiana recycling plant fire. Officials set to evaluate the evacuation order today CNN
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Arrest made in connection to San Francisco Outer Sunset home explosion; police report details backstory, narcotics found in debris – KGO-TV
- Arrest made in connection to San Francisco Outer Sunset home explosion; police report details backstory, narcotics found in debris KGO-TV
- Suspect arrested in San Francisco Sunset home explosion; facing manslaughter, drug manufacturing cha KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
- SF deadly house fire investigation continues KRON 4
- SF house fire: Mysterious liquid-filled tanks recovered from wreckage San Francisco Chronicle
- Suspect arrested in San Francisco Sunset home explosion; facing manslaughter, drug manufacturing charges KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Space Sail Experiment Expedites Disposal of Satellite
There’s a lot of junk orbiting our planet, from tiny flecks of paint to defunct rocket stages. While solutions to remove pre-existing debris have been developed, a private space company in Germany has successfully tested a method to deorbit satellites at the end of their life to prevent them from becoming space debris in the first place.
The Drag Augmentation Deorbiting System (ADEO) braking sail was developed by High Performance Space Structure Systems as a way to deorbit satellites at the end of their mission. In a space-based test in December 2022 called “Show Me Your Wings,” ADEO was deployed from an ION Satellite Carrier built by private space company D-Orbit. ADEO successfully pushed the satellite carrier out of its orbit, sending it into the atmosphere to burn up.
“Show Me Your Wings” marks the final in-flight qualification test of ADEO as a proof-of-concept after tests began in 2018. The European Space Agency hopes ADEO will help prevent future decommissioned satellites from becoming orbiting space debris, which can pose a threat to space operations.
“We want to establish a zero debris policy, which means if you bring a spacecraft into orbit you have to remove it,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher in a press release.
ADEO is a 38-square-foot (3.5-square-meter) sail made up of an aluminum-coated polyamide membrane secured to four carbon-fibre reinforced arms that are positioned in an X-shape. The sail increases surface drag when deployed from a satellite, leading to a more rapidly decaying orbit. ADEO can also be scaled up or down depending on the size of the satellite it’s attached to. The largest version could reach 1,076-square-feet (100-square-meter) with the smallest sail being 37-square-foot (3.5-square-meter).
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NASA estimates that 27,000 pieces of space debris are orbiting Earth, most of which are larger than a softball and traveling at speeds around 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour). While ESA has previously announced plans to remove pre-existing space debris in the form of decommissioned satellites, ADEO is an attempt at preventing satellites from ever becoming debris in the first place.
More: Jeff Bezos’s Girlfriend Is Leading an All-Women Blue Origin Spaceflight
Space Debris Game: Why space junk is a growing problem
(Illustrations by Ibrahim Rayintakath)
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik. Since then, the space above Earth has been flooded with thousands of satellites, spent rocket stages and the debris from several catastrophic events. As a result, Earth’s lower orbit has been littered with an increasing amount of junk that is careening through space at intense speeds, threatening satellites and even the International Space Station.
Last year, the problem became serious enough to prompt the Biden administration to call for the abolishment of tests that destroy satellites in orbit. The announcement came after Russia blew up a dead satellite in 2021, creating a massive debris field that threatened the ISS astronauts along with other satellites.
In the future, if the international community cannot come up with a way to regulate the Wild West of space, the debris problem will get worse. Every year there are dozens of near-collisions between active satellites or pieces of debris. The more satellites that flood Earth’s orbit, the greater the chances that one will happen. The more collisions, the more debris — all of which fuels what many fear could become a destructive cycle.
Earth’s lower orbit is crowded by a number of objects — including working satellites as well as space debris like defunct satellites, spent rocket stages, and the detritus from missile strikes and collisions.
Working satellites
There are more than 6,000 active satellites rotating around Earth as of Jan. 9, according to LeoLabs, a company that tracks satellites and debris in Earth’s lower orbit. Some are small, the size of a shoebox; others are much larger. Their functions vary widely, from providing television and Internet service, to GPS and weather monitoring.
Defunct satellites
Satellites can’t live forever. They run out of fuel eventually, or malfunction and become giant pieces of garbage whizzing around the Earth. Currently, there are more than 1,800 defunct satellites in lower orbit. Under the current rules, the United States requires satellites to deorbit — or burn up in Earth’s atmosphere — after 25 years. But many think that regulation is far too lax and that satellites should be deorbited earlier.
Fragments
Over the years, astronauts on spacewalks have dropped a camera lens cap, a screwdriver and even a spatula — adding to the curious collection of things in orbit, which includes eroded spacecraft parts and baseball-sized chunks of garbage.
Even small pieces of debris — a nut or even a fleck of paint — can cause enormous damage in space.
Spent rocket stages
As rockets launch to orbit, they often discard upper stages that have their own engines and propellant. If they don’t burn up in the atmosphere or fall back to Earth, they join the cloud of space debris in low Earth orbit. Several of these are the size of a school bus, spinning wildly as they move through space. In total, there are nearly 1,000 spent rocket stages of varying sizes in Earth’s lower orbit.
The United States and private companies like LeoLabs track tens of thousands of pieces of space debris, including operational and non-operational satellites, rocket stages and unknown objects. But there are many more pieces too small to see. NASA estimates that there are roughly 500,000 objects between 1 and 10 centimeters in diameter orbiting Earth, and that there are more than 100 million particles larger than 1 millimeter. (The agency said that as of January last year, the amount of material in orbit was more than 9,000 metric tons.)
And as more companies flood Earth’s orbit with an increasing number of satellites, there is growing concern that collisions — which would only make more debris — are inevitable, as theorized by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978.
If nothing is done, space could become so polluted that it is unsafe for human exploration and could leave some of the world’s most sensitive satellites, which are used for GPS and missile warnings, at risk.
Despite the growing amount of launches and space debris, there are very few rules of the road in space. While the Pentagon issues warnings about possible collisions, it cannot order one spacecraft operator to move out of the way.
Thankfully, there are a number of steps governments and companies are taking to curb the problem of space junk. The Biden administration has called for a ban on all destructive antisatellite tests, and recently, the Pentagon launched a program, called Orbital Prime, under the U.S. Space Force that will give companies seed money to develop the technology needed to clean up space.
That includes grappling large bodies and pulling them out of orbit (one company that is working with the European Space Agency proposes using a spacecraft with large arms that would function like a Venus’ flytrap), or refueling or repairing them so they can last longer and maneuver in space.
To track orbital debris, the Pentagon and commercial companies rely on a network of ground-based radar and optical telescopes. Radars can measure the distance to their targets and some can even track more than one object at a time, according to the Secure World Foundation, a think tank. Telescopes collect light reflected by debris and can cover large areas quickly and at high altitudes. The U.S. Space Force says it tracks more than 40,000 objects in space the size of a fist or larger. But there are at least 10 times as many smaller objects in orbit that the Pentagon can’t reliably track.
Ultimately, many space officials say that cleaning up space will require foreign governments to work together.
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Russian space debris forces space station to dodge, cancels spacewalk
NASA has called off a planned spacewalk at the last moment after a large piece of Russian space debris came dangerously close to the orbital outpost.
NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada were getting ready to step out from the QUEST airlock on the International Space Station early Wednesday (Dec. 21) morning to install new solar arrays to improve the power system of the orbital outpost when their ground control team commanded them to halt the work. Instead, the space station will perform an emergency maneuver to get out of the way of a large piece of space debris that is on track to get dangerously close to the lab later today.
The debris in question is a piece of a Russian rocket, the 11-foot-wide (3.35 meters) Fregat upper stage used on Soyuz and Zenith launchers. The junk was predicted to get within less than a quarter of a mile (0.4 kilometers) from the station later today, triggering a “red,” highest-level warning, Dan Huot, NASA spokesperson at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during live commentary.
Related: International Space Station: Live updates
“This is a piece of debris that’s been tracked over the last couple of days and its tracking data was always in our green or yellow range, which doesn’t necessitate doing a maneuver,” Huot said. “But this morning, it moved to red, and once we get into red, we have to take action, whether it’s a debris maneuver or some other precautionary measure to help keep the crew safe.”
The decision to cancel the spacewalk was made at around 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT), Huot added. The ground control team is now preparing to steer the station to safety using thrusters aboard Russia’s Progress cargo spacecraft that is currently docked to the station’s Russian segment. The maneuver is expected to take place at 8:42 a.m. EST (1342 GMT).
Huot said that the space station is in no danger from the debris, which was predicted to make its closest approach to the space lab at 11:17 a.m. EST (1617 GMT).
NASA will look for a new slot for the needed spacewalk, which might take place later this week.
“The crew is going to have to replan their schedule for the day so they don’t expect to see a spacewalk today,” Huot said. “The crew is not in danger. This is not the first time we’ve done this and won’t be the last. This is just about some of the realities of operating in low Earth orbit.”
The incident comes about a week after a significant coolant leak from Russia’s Soyuz crew capsule, which brought NASA’s Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin to the space station in September. The leak, which may have rendered the capsule unsafe to fly astronauts home, was blamed on a piece of space debris or a meteorite by experts, although a formal investigation is still underway.
If the concerns are confirmed, the space station might be for the first time in its history without a capability to bring its entire crew safely home in case of a serious incident aboard.
“Never a dull day aboard the International Space Station,” Huot said.
Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
China accused of seizing rocket debris from Philippines navy in South China Sea dispute | South China Sea
China’s coast guard forcibly seized the suspected debris of a Chinese rocket that the Philippine navy was towing to its island in the South China Sea, Philippines military officials have said, in the latest confrontation in the disputed sea.
The Chinese vessel twice blocked the Philippine naval boat before seizing the floating debris it was towing on Sunday off Philippine-occupied Thitu island, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said on Monday. He said no one was injured in the incident.
Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past, but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military constituted a more brazen act.
The incident comes a day before a scheduled visit by the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, to the western province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea. The aim of the visit is to underscore American support for the Philippines and to renew the US commitment to defend Filipino forces, ships and aircraft if they come under attack in the disputed waters.
It’s the latest flare-up in long-seething territorial disputes in the strategic waterway involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Carlos said the Filipino sailors, using a long-range camera on Thitu island, spotted the debris drifting in strong waves near a sandbar a little over 500 metres away. They set out on a boat and retrieved the floating object and started to tow it back to their island using a rope tied to their boat.
As the Filipino sailors were moving back to their island, “they noticed that China coast guard vessel with bow number 5203 was approaching their location and subsequently blocked their pre-plotted course twice”, Carlos said in a statement.
The Chinese vessel then deployed an inflatable boat with personnel who “forcefully retrieved said floating object by cutting the towing line attached to the” Filipino sailors’ rubber boat. The Filipino sailors decided to return to their island, Carlos said, without detailing what happened.
Major Cherryl Tindog, a spokesperson for the Philippines military’s western command, said the floating metal object appeared similar to a number of other pieces of Chinese rocket debris recently found in Philippine waters. She added the Filipino sailors did not fight the seizure.
“We practise maximum tolerance in such a situation,” Tindog said. “Since it involved an unidentified object and not a matter of life and death, our team just decided to return.”
Metal debris from Chinese rocket launches, some showing a part of what appears to be a Chinese flag, have been found in Philippine waters on at least three other occasions.
Rockets launched from the Wenchang space launch centre on China’s Hainan island in recent months have carried construction materials and supplies for China’s crewed space station.
China has been criticised previously for allowing rocket stages to fall to Earth uncontrolled. Nasa accused Beijing last year of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean, and the Philippine Space Agency earlier this month pressed for the Philippines to ratify UN treaties providing a basis for compensation for harm from other nations’ space debris.
The Philippine government has filed many diplomatic protests against China over aggressive actions in the South China Sea but it did not immediately say what action it would take following Sunday’s incident. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila usually waits for an official investigation report before lodging a protest.
Thitu island, which Filipinos call Pag-asa, hosts a fishing community and Filipino forces and lies near Subi, one of seven disputed reefs in the offshore region that China has turned into missile-protected islands, including three with runways, which US security officials say now resemble military forward bases.
The Philippines and other smaller claimant nations in the disputed region, backed by the US and other western countries, have strongly protested and raised alarm over China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the busy waterway.
China accused of seizing rocket debris from Philippines navy in South China Sea dispute | South China Sea
China’s coast guard forcibly seized the suspected debris of a Chinese rocket that the Philippine navy was towing to its island in the South China Sea, Philippines military officials have said, in the latest confrontation in the disputed sea.
The Chinese vessel twice blocked the Philippine naval boat before seizing the floating debris it was towing on Sunday off Philippine-occupied Thitu island, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said on Monday. He said no one was injured in the incident.
The incident occurred just hours before US vice-president Kamala Harris arrived in the Philippines for talks with president Ferdinand Marcos Jr, where the leaders are expected to discuss the strengthening of their security alliance. Speaking ahead of their meeting on Monday, Harris said the US had an “unwavering commitment” to defending international rules and norms in the South China Sea.
“An armed attack on the Philippines, armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke US mutual defence commitments and that is an unwavering commitment that we have to the Philippines,” she said.
Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past, but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military constituted a more brazen act.
Monday’s incident is the latest flare-up in long-seething territorial disputes in the strategic waterway involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Carlos said the Filipino sailors, using a long-range camera on Thitu island, spotted the debris drifting in strong waves near a sandbar a little over 500 metres away. They set out on a boat and retrieved the floating object and started to tow it back to their island using a rope tied to their boat.
As the Filipino sailors were moving back to their island, “they noticed that China coast guard vessel with bow number 5203 was approaching their location and subsequently blocked their pre-plotted course twice”, Carlos said in a statement.
The Chinese vessel then deployed an inflatable boat with personnel who “forcefully retrieved said floating object by cutting the towing line attached to the” Filipino sailors’ rubber boat. The Filipino sailors decided to return to their island, Carlos said, without detailing what happened.
Major Cherryl Tindog, a spokesperson for the Philippines military’s western command, said the floating metal object appeared similar to a number of other pieces of Chinese rocket debris recently found in Philippine waters. She added the Filipino sailors did not fight the seizure.
“We practise maximum tolerance in such a situation,” Tindog said. “Since it involved an unidentified object and not a matter of life and death, our team just decided to return.”
Metal debris from Chinese rocket launches, some showing a part of what appears to be a Chinese flag, have been found in Philippine waters on at least three other occasions.
Rockets launched from the Wenchang space launch centre on China’s Hainan island in recent months have carried construction materials and supplies for China’s crewed space station.
On Monday, Marcos welcomed Harris’ comments reiterating US commitments to protecting international order the South China Sea, and described the ties between the two countries as increasing important in light of instability seen in the region and internationally.
“I have said many times I do not see a future for the Philippines that does not include the United States,” he said.
The leaders are expected to discuss the strengthening of security and economic cooperation, as well as concerns such as the climate crisis. Harris will travel to Palawan on Tuesday, the island province near to the South China Sea.
China has been criticised previously for allowing rocket stages to fall to Earth uncontrolled. Nasa accused Beijing last year of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean, and the Philippine Space Agency earlier this month pressed for the Philippines to ratify UN treaties providing a basis for compensation for harm from other nations’ space debris.
The Philippine government has filed many diplomatic protests against China over aggressive actions in the South China Sea but it did not immediately say what action it would take following Sunday’s incident. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila usually waits for an official investigation report before lodging a protest.
Thitu island, which Filipinos call Pag-asa, hosts a fishing community and Filipino forces and lies near Subi, one of seven disputed reefs in the offshore region that China has turned into missile-protected islands, including three with runways, which US security officials say now resemble military forward bases.
The Philippines and other smaller claimant nations in the disputed region, backed by the US and other western countries, have strongly protested and raised alarm over China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the busy waterway.
Associated Press contributed to this report