NASA: Top 10 Space Junk Missions (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: NASA' s Orbital Debris Program Office said that by far the source of the greatest amount of orbital debris remains the Fengyun-1C spacecraft, which was the target of a People's Republic of China anti-satellite test in January 2007. Much more debris is now floating around Earth's atmosphere since the six years NASA last looked at the top 10 space junk missions. The space agency says that 10 missions out of the 5,160 space missions that have launched since 1957 account for approximately one-third of all cataloged objects now in Earth orbit. NASA said that the second and fourth most significant satellite breakups are Cosmos 2251 and Iridium 33 spacecraft, which were involved in the first ever accidental satellite collision February 2009.

Comments

Space debris

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Ah yes, space debris, another problem that's easy to create and practically fucking impossible to fix.

Re:Space debris

[Dutch Gun]

This is something that giant killer lasers can totally fix. We should also deploy them in space, and create an advanced AI to autonomously control them, so it can clean up the skies for us.

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Space debris

[Big Hairy Ian]

This is something that giant killer lasers can totally fix. We should also deploy them in space, and create an advanced AI to autonomously control them, so it can clean up the skies for us.

What could possibly go wrong?

There's an implementation issue. The sharks tend to die in the vacuum of space

It was a message

[DNS-and-BIND]

When the Chinese used their ASAT weapon to destroy their own satellite, sending a huge cloud of debris in orbit, they were sending a message. Did anyone get it? What do you think the message was? I didn't see any discussion of this but it came through loud and clear.

The message was, don't fuck with us or we'll destroy your satellites and we don't give a shit how much space debris it creates. Since you are far more dependent on your satellites than we are on ours, you suffer much more in this scenario. If giving China an advantage means screwing up low earth orbit for hundreds of years, then so be it. You have the power to avoid this scenario by not putting us in a position where we feel threatened enough to use our ASAT weapons.

It's just weird seeing a government do things like this, in its own interest. Being an American, I just assume that my own government is going to regard its own country as best as an annoyance and at worst the enemy, and its real goals are global and trans-national. I assume a lot of Europeans feel the same way. It baffles me, seeing a government pursue goals that benefit its own country and not everyone else. I just don't have any frame of reference to compare it to.

Like the message the US send in 1985?

[thesupraman]

Perhaps similar to the time in 1985 when America used ITS ASAT missile to hit the P78-1 SOLWIND satellite, resulting in a need for additional anti-collision design for the ISS?

FWIW the FY1C was 750kg, the SOLWIND was 850kg.. so they should have had rather similar debris clouds..

Or, perhaps it is somehow different? After all, when the US did it, no one else had... Perhaps being first makes it better?

Re: Like the message the US send in 1985?

[WindBourne]

Quite the difference though. China's sat was destroyed at 530 miles up, and created over 2000 trackable sized items ( with more than 150,000 debris item). Assuming no cleanup by China, then in 100 years there will still be debris.
OTOH, solwind was shot at 326 miles up, and created 285 trackable parts. All of that was gone by 2008.
Quite the difference. Also if you think that iss put up shielding due to solwnd, then you are kidding yourself. Plenty of other junk up there.

Take-back obligation...

[UweEmmrich-Kießling]

He who puts things in the orbit should be obliged to remove it from there if no longer needed or defunct...