HOME	The problem of space debris

Space Debris is man-made things floating uncontrollably in space. About 5,000 satellites have been launched since Sputnik 1 first took off in 1957. Some of these satellites have stopped operating and just float around uncontrollably in space and become space debris. Among the debris floating around the Earth, are not just old satellites, but parts that have broken off space craft, paint chips or tiles, gloves that astronauts have dropped -- a multitude of objects. There are now about 9,000 pieces of Space Debris floating round our planet. Broken pieces comprises the largest part of these objects, making up half the total. The remainder are decommissioned satellites or discarded rockets. If debris falls out of orbit and drops toward Earth it burns up upon re-entry, unless it is too large.

The earth surrounded by space junk

Debris poses environmental problems for space and for the future of our planet.

The space around earth is likely to get busier in the future!

Because artificial objects floating in space are moving rapidly at speeds of several kilometers per second, any collision in which they are involved is much more dangerous than a crash involving a similar-sized object on Earth. The launch of the Endevour Space Shuttle flight (STS-72) that carried Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata in 1996 was postponed for five minutes because the shuttle's course may have overlapped a U.S. military satellite's path. The Japanese Space Flyer Unit (SFU) that Wakata retrieved during the mission had almost 500 dents on it.

In July of the same year, the French satellite Selene lost some of its parts after it collided with suitcase-sized debris. Because of such incidents, people have begun to see debris as being an environmental problem in space.

The solution lies in creating less trash than we are able to dispose of. Debris poses a great threat to the International Space Station on which construction started in 1998. Like the space shuttle, the space station's orbit path will have to be changed if it appears likely to be hit by debris larger than 10 centimeters. But the basic approach to the debris problem is the same approach taken toward trash on Earth -- do not create more than we can get rid of. Astronauts now try to jettison all their extra fuel to avoid an explosion if they crash into debris and they no longer throw away parts. De-commissioned satellites are programmed to re-enter the atmosphere as soon as possible, or shift 300 kilometers further into space where they will not interfere with operating craft.