THE FUTURE OF SPACE DEBRIS
4 October 1957 became one of the most important dates in space exploration when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik. It was the day the Space Age officially began, but an otherwise glorious technological achievement brought with it an unfortunate consequence – the mission left behind the first space debris in history.
Over the last six decades space traffic has increased massively. That’s inevitably meant that the volume of space debris – defined as non-functioning human-made objects either in Earth orbit or re-entering the atmosphere – has grown with it. It’s the problematic downside of our expanding ambitions in space.
The desirable low-Earth orbits – altitudes up to around 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles) – are the most crowded areas and are only going to get busier as more countries and private companies vie for a foothold in the final frontier. There are over 8,400 tonnes of human-made material orbiting our planet. That includes well over 100 million individual pieces of debris, and while the vast majority are less than a centimetre in diameter, some 900,000 pieces are in the one to ten centimetre (0.4 to four inch) range,
