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The recent collision between an American commercial satellite and a Russian retired satellite has raised a lot of questions on the safety of the rest of the objects orbiting Earth, as well as on space junk, which now reportedly counts over 18,000 pieces of debris.
Russian and American experts have already held meetings regarding the incident, which got even other agencies worried. The European Space Agency said it is reconsidering its options, by funding the Space Situational Awareness Initiative, first introduced last in year. One of the mission’s objectives is to survey the objects orbiting the Earth in various orbits, by detecting, tracking and imaging them.
Experts attending the meeting in Vienna of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space have also raised concerns over the collision between the two satellites, the Associated Press reported.
Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, was quoted as saying:
Today’s environment is all right but the environment is going to get worse, therefore I need to start thinking about the future and how I can clean up sometime in the future.
Johnson also explained that out of the thousands of pieces of debris in space, at least one thousand of them are larger than 10 centimeters, and pose a threat to other orbiting satellites. This threat is likely to last for 10,000 years, it has been estimated.
During the Vienna meeting, several propositions on managing the junk have been made, including attaching balloons to pieces of debris to increase their atmospheric drag and bring them back to Earth, or attaching a 10-mile (16-kilometer) electrodynamic tether to debris that would generate a current, which then allow the debris to be controlled from Earth, thus enabling technicians to bring it down.
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