The Debate Over Space Junk and How to Clean It Up

Due to lack of adherence to rules governing space activities, the number of satellites, rocket fragments, and dead spacecraft circling Earth is growing at an alarming rate. Without better compliance with existing rules or tightened controls, soon, low-Earth orbit may become an area inhospitable to the majority of future missions.

Scientific work is ongoing to develop methods for clearing space debris, but this will probably be an expensive process that will take many years. One of the answers could be the introduction of property rights for objects in space.

What is Space Junk? 

Space Junk is defined as anything that was man-made and is no longer being used for its intended function, from full satellites and rocket stages to debris the size of paint chips. Most will lie in orbit, some even making it to the surface of the Earth; but many more stay well within our atmosphere, moving at thousands of miles per hour.

Orbital debris can harm satellites, interfere with repairs, and create catastrophic collisions that blow space junk into lower orbits-once considered safe for many years or decades-forfeiting millions in revenues and endangering future missions. 

The space debris already have begun to fill up our atmosphere, and there will be more, with the full deployment of commercial satellite constellations such as that of SpaceX, Project Kuiper by Amazon, and OneWeb Corporation. Every new satellite adds debris into space and increases the chances of collision yet again.

Aerospace companies have begun taking this problem seriously, designing satellites with electric propulsion systems that minimize small particles released by chemical rockets as well as end-of-life de-orbit thrusters to push failing or non-operational craft into the atmosphere of the Earth. Researchers in Japan, meanwhile, are testing wooden spacecraft that will minimize toxic debris during deorbiting, but this will never be a full solution to the problem. 

What are the Problems with Space Junk?

Space exploration began more than eighty years ago and has triggered the launching of thousands of rockets, satellites, and space vehicles into the atmosphere. While they served their purposes well enough, these objects have now passed their usefulness and thus pose hazard-creating situations to astronauts and spacecraft-their accumulating presence is aptly entitled "space junk". Space debris poses real threats to astronauts, spacecraft, and sometimes Earth itself. 

Satellites in orbit, GPS systems, and communications satellites all, to varying extent, are at risk from debris. However, not just the larger objects create this risk; there are also boa number of fragments, thousands of these are the size of marbles, hundreds of thousands of the size of marbles, but the smaller ones are much more difficult to track. 

According to NASA's Heather Cowardin, her agency is tracking over 23,000 pieces of space junk bigger than 10cm moving very fast across our borders. These minute pieces of debris pose a threat to functioning satellites engaged in research missions in space, possibly endangering research activities being done there. 

Globally, firms are putting efforts to put this problem to rest. Astroscale, one of these firms, plans to launch ELSA-d shortly to assess technology related to magnet use in litter collection and disposal in outer space. 

NASA is taking action to repair the problem of space junk: investigating and attempting to reduce the generation of orbital debris and building technology that can locate and destroy debris already in existence. Yet even if this works, it can never be a full solution: ownership of any object in space is derived from the country of origin, so a good Samaritan wishing to clear another nation's junk in space will always need its permission.

What Do You Think Can Be Done to Clean Space Junk?

The destruction of the debris left in space certainly has no easy solution nor will it come relatively cheap. However, firms worldwide are testing ways by which such debris can be removed from space using magnets or lasers that will pull the satellites and fragments towards the Earth where they would eventually burn into the atmosphere. These technologies would barely matter unless we seriously curb the generation of space junk in the first place.

Space debris are created when satellites collide with each other or with objects such as rocket boosters; detonations; or disintegration of satellites which have served their purposes. Sometimes, this debris is so large that it takes with it satellites at an International Space Station; on others, smaller pieces like grain of sand or paint flake are formed but can still do a lot of harm to functional satellites. 

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs has issued guidelines to limit further debris accumulation stipulating how nations and companies should act in space, for example, to take satellites out of orbit once their purpose has been served and nudging them towards an "orbit of silence". When returning reentry capsules back into Earth orbit, operators are advised to time it so that they crash into the ocean instead of cities or other valuable targets.

Who Will Clean Up Space Junk?

While space junk has grown into an ever-deepening concern due to more objects getting launched than ever into orbit, collisions of such objects with existing debris occur frequently nowadays. NASA scientists in a recent study looked at various concepts for breaking up satellites and such, weighing costs and benefits for each; their model estimated financial risks associated with space debris for satellite operators and how long it would take for different cleanup mechanisms to make back their initial investments; their list of priorities included nudging large debris (objects 10cm or bigger that pose the greatest threats), followed by using ground lasers to remove objects that aren't trackable like really old satellites and spent rocket stages or large debris using ground lasers. In their model, they specified the financial risk for satellite operators arising from the space debris.