Jakarta –
Space junk keep growing. Like a time bomb, the debris scattered in outer space is just waiting for the time to fall to Earth. The threat is even more worrisome.
The most recent is the downing of China’s Long March 5B rocket which launched uncontrollably into the Indian Ocean on Sunday (9/5) local time. Critics also attacked China, which was considered irresponsible for its space junk.
Space debris is indeed an important issue that is being highlighted regarding the advancement of space technology. Since the race into space between the United States and the Soviet Union, many other countries have made their own satellites and launched them into space. The problem is, few care about the fate of the spacecraft after the mission is complete.
Space Junk Threat
Reporting from Deutsche Welle as seen Saturday (29/5/2021) according to NASA estimates, there were at least 23,000 discarded payload units, consisting of rocket bodies, and other debris more than 10 cm in length surrounding the planet.
In addition, there are 500 thousand other small objects with lengths between 1 cm to 10 cm. All of these objects travel at least 18,000 miles per hour and can last for decades before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.
While in orbit, they pose a risk to commercial communications satellites, scientific and weather orbiters, and of course the International Space Station which is currently home to on-duty astronauts.
As outer space becomes increasingly littered with trash, scientists think this could lead to Kessler syndrome, a nightmare scenario in which so many space junk makes us no longer able to launch satellites into orbit and has a bad impact on modern human life because many things depend on satellites, one of which is telecommunications.
Another threat is the greater the danger posed by the collision of celestial bodies falling to Earth. Unwanted explosions in rocket launchers left in space are the most common cases that produce large amounts of small debris in outer space.
Other waste is solid fuel residue, frozen liquid waste and satellite fragments. How big the volume of trash in outer space, no one knows exactly. Because radar devices on Earth can only detect celestial debris that is at least the size of a soccer ball.
Clean up outer space
Space clean-up efforts have begun. Various space agencies of a number of countries and space technology companies are trying to create a way to transport this garbage.
Space.com reports that NASA and SpaceX will deploy their next-generation Starship rocket system to help clear Earth’s orbit. Then there is Astroscale from Japan in collaboration with JAXA to launch a magnetic space garbage collection machine called End of Life Services by Astroscale demonstration or ELSA-d.
Europe also wants to be the first to clean up space debris, the European space agency ESA recently announced plans to launch a space debris removal mission in 2025 with the help of a Swiss startup called ClearSpace.
Whoever can do it first, hopefully it can be a solution to reduce it a little space junk scattered up there, so as not to become a time bomb that explodes at any time and has a more dangerous impact.
Watch Videos”US and Japanese Astronaut Missions in Space“
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(rns/fay)
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