Select text to annotate, Click play in YouTube to begin
In just 70 years, humanity’s exploration and exploitation of space has contaminated Earth orbits with more than 13,000 tonnes of junk. Satellites, tops of rockets, other pieces of debris, we've left them there. It's a throwaway culture. Tens of thousands of larger objects are being tracked right now by dishes like this one.
But they can't track the millions of smaller, potentially lethal projectiles hurtling around our planet. Everything in space, satellites, bolts, flecks of paint, is travelling at several kilometres per second, way faster than a bullet. Even microscopic specks of paint or metal can become potentially lethal projectiles in the
near vacuum of space, punching holes in the outer layers of the International Space Station. There are actually deflector shields on the Space Station. You talk to an astronaut, they hear things hitting when they're trying to sleep, and some of that is space debris. Crews have been ordered into escape pods or avoidance manoeuvres at least 39 times after close calls with orbiting debris. Spacecraft unable to move out of harm’s way are
not only lost, but add to a critical mass of junk in earth orbits. If it impacts a satellite, it has the same energy at impact as a military hand grenade. When a defunct Russian craft collided with an Iridium communications satellite in 2009, thousands of fragments were left behind, threatening more craft and more collisions,
which would create even more debris. This cascading space junk scenario is the Kessler syndrome, named after a NASA scientist who foresaw the possibility back in the late 1970s. The consequences of congestion and increased collisions in space will ultimately mean that we lose access to it. It could happen tomorrow, it could happen in a couple of years, we don't
know how near or how far we are from that. On average, around a dozen “fragmentations”, break-ups caused by collisions or wear and tear, have been recorded every year over the past 20 years, and observations suggest they’re on the rise, amid booming demand for satellite services. So we’re coming here into the control room This atmospheric and radio astronomy facility south-west of London, also monitors orbital
traffic for the UK Space Agency. The amount of debris around has definitely increased substantially in the last few years. Of around 35,000 large objects tracked here, most are inactive - whole craft or bits and pieces, spinning out of control, threatening vital science, communication and observation services that much of the world now depends on.
Each of us is using space-based infrastructure or services. Just think of navigation at a global scale, communication, weather forecasts. A lot of infrastructures are operated or coordinated through space-based timing signals. It's everywhere. While collision avoidance alerts have become an almost weekly occurrence at ESA mission control,
the world’s largest satellite operator, the SpaceX-owned Starlink, reported more than 49,000 risk mitigation manoeuvres in the six months to the end of May 2024. Its fleet has grown to a total of almost 7,000 craft in orbit. The global satellite services market generated more than $110bn in revenue in 2023.
All that could be at risk, if space junk cascades out of control. Everyone, especially commercial actors, have an interest in space staying sustainable. If the situation worsens, they will be the first to lose a lot of money. To avoid adding to the problem, many companies and agencies have zero-debris policies, which
include sending end-of-life satellites down and out of orbit, to burn up in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, getting out of the gravity field of the Earth and dumping it into the sun doesn't work because you need much more energy to get out than getting back to Earth. We have to realise that bringing the object back to Earth is the only way how we can do it. And that comes with risks.
Robust materials like metal alloys can survive re-entry, and while burn-ups can be directed over unpopulated areas, debris has fallen over people too. My first reaction was, this is just absolutely crazy. I study space junk, and space junk has fallen right near my house, so like, what are the odds of that? That’s crazy. This happened right near my home in Saskatchewan, Canada. There were very
large pieces of space debris that landed across a whole swath of farmland. You know, thinking about that falling out of the sky from orbit is terrifying, terrifying right? But it happened to land in an open field. Even if operational craft can be brought safely back to Earth, what about those many thousands of dead satellites and other uncontrolled objects? For some, that threat presents an opportunity.
We see more demand coming from agencies that have created that debris problem, but also the commercial sector. Astroscale is one of several businesses working on missions to remove larger objects from orbit before they break up into fragments that may be impossible to clear. Various capture methods have been proposed across the sector, but all depend on building spacecraft capable of the complex manoeuvres required to
catch and not crash into tumbling debris. This is where the craft designed to latch onto space junk are being built, and one of them has a rendezvous with satellites now at the end of their working lives. We’re going to launch it into orbit and gradually approach that spacecraft and capture that spacecraft using a magnetic capture system, and then we will tug that spacecraft out of orbit and drop it off beneath
the Space Station, so it burns up. This mission is due to deploy in 2026, but rolling out such technology on larger scales will take a lot of time and money. There’s also growing concern over the unknown effects of rising, unnatural levels of metallic pollution linked to burning debris in the upper atmosphere.
Congestion is another issue, as satellite operators plan to put tens of thousands more craft into orbit over the next decade, feeding ever growing government, military and industry demand. We really need someone to enforce orbital safety in space, and that's not happening at all right now. The fallout from increased satellite launches has even disrupted commercial aviation, after
one airline was forced to delay flights to avoid rocket parts re-entering the atmosphere. Agencies like the UN are working to focus attention on sustainability, and while its 1967 Outer Space Treaty was drawn up long before the large-scale commercialisation of space, it insists that the principles are still relevant, including those holding governments
liable for what they launch into orbit. All of the rules of the road for sustainable space activities have actually been put at the disposal of member states. Implementation and enforcement however, has to be done at national level and we really need member states to step up. Ambition and imagination have led to great feats of engineering in space, but future industry and
exploration may become too risky, if we don’t clean up the growing mess we’ve left behind.
End of transcript