gear Push settings
The Intelsat 33e satellite's breakup raises serious concerns about space debris.
Low-orbit Earth could become inoperable for spacecraft and satellites if this complacency persists, with dire consequences.
The ISS will be old enough to retire by the end of this decade. Here's what will happen once it's out of service.
The satellites demonstrate a super low-cost solution for preventing space debris.
We're littering our planet's orbit.
The Russians apparently have been unintentionally playing the galactic version of bumper cars. It has been reported that the Chinese satellite Yunhai 1-02 broke apart into several pieces in March after it whacked into space junk from part of a Russian Zenit-2 rocket. Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell spotted the wreckage recently in a data log […]
Space junk is a classic example of the Tragedy of the Commons -- now it's time to take responsability and pay up.
An experimental spacecraft designed to solve our growing space junk problem was a sound success.
They're after the Moby Dick of space.
It's a super James Bond-esque idea.
It's a sensor that will tell scientists how common small, but dangerous debris are.
This may be crazy enough to work.
Inspired by nature, scientists tackle a sticky problem.
ESA is proposing the most promising 'space janitor' yet.
Space junk is cluttering space. One day, we might not be able to launch anything anymore.
We’ve mentioned on numerous occasions the growing problem of space debris and voiced our concerns that, if left unchecked, the thousands of metal junk fragments currently out there could seriously affect space missions and even threaten lives. In Earth’s orbit, even a tiny metal fragment could potentially wreak havoc upon impact with a spacecraft or satellite because of […]
The European Space Agency just announced the asteroid they chose for an upcoming controlled crash landing of one of their spacecraft. The objective? Well, more or less, they just want to see what happens. The Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission will intercept the asteroid, called Didymos, in 2022, when the asteroid gets within […]
Ever increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not only hazardous to life on the planet’s surface, but also to human operations in space. A new study has found that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere upper levels could push made-made objects orbiting the planet further away from their trajectories, resulting in a […]
The Russian space program’s Mission Control Center recently announced that the International Space Station will adjust its orbit to prevent a possible collision with a debris cloud from a Japanese satellite. The dodge is provisionally planned for 10.22am BST (9.22 GMT, 00.01 PST), time at which the Russian Zvevda module will fire its booster rockets and move […]
This Friday, ground mission control ordered the current stationed astronaut crew at the International Space Station to head for the escape capsules as a safety precaution in light of a threatening space junk flyby. This is the third time in 12 years an ISS crew had to take this extreme measure. The space debris in […]
There are currently an estimated 19,000 individual space debris swirling around Earth’s orbit at 17,000 miles/hour, posing great threat to current active satellites, telescopes, future launches in orbit, the International Space Station and even astronauts out on space walks. It’s very clear that something must be done, before the Earth gets one of its own […]
When we started putting satellites on orbit, few could have pondered the idea of space junk, and even fewer would have guessed that a time will come when we will have to clean up after our spatial enterprises. But the time came, and really soon, and space junk is a real problem. This is why […]
In January, 1997 Lottie Williams was strolling through a park in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her friends around 3:30 AM, when a dashing fireball appeared over the sky, much to the promenaders’ admiration. Moments later, Williams was hit in the shoulder by a small piece of fabric-like metal that weighed as much as an empty soda can. […]
Remarkably, a growing issue NASA scientists face everyday is space junk – tiny bits of scrap, bolts, rocket modules from launches and so on. All of them along the years have amassed to a point where it is now very dangerous for satellites, orbiting spacecrafts and especially the International Space Station to freely orbit Earth. […]
Junk is not only limited to our planet, we have a problem with space pollution as well. In 1978, a brilliant NASA researcher named Donald Kessler predicted that a collision between two pieces of space junk could trigger a cascade of further impacts, which would create a significant quantity of debris which would then cause […]
