Last year, debris from a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft fell on a sheep farm in rural Australia. The events caused concern across the world, notably in Europe, where airspace over several airports in Spain was closed as a precaution.Īuthorities temporarily closed the airspace over parts of Barcelona, Tarragona, Reus and Ibiza. Last year, pieces of a Chinese rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere and fell into the Pacific. In November 2021, Russia destroyed the Cosmos 1408 satellite with a missile, creating more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris, which generated hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces.ĭays later, astronauts aboard the ISS had to seek emergency shelter from the debris.Ĭhina has also been criticised over how it discards rocket remnants. Manoeuvres to the International Space Station (ISS) are regularly made these days to avoid space junk.Īnti-satellite testing - the use of military-grade technology to destroy spacecraft - is also dangerous and can create thousands of pieces of debris. "If we don’t significantly change the way we use launch, fly and dispose of space objects, an 'extrapolation' of our current behaviour into the future shows how the number of catastrophic in-space collisions could rise."ĭebris in space can create danger for astronauts and spacecraft, and with more companies looking to launch satellite constellations, experts are worried about a crowded low-Earth orbit and a sharp rise in the levels of junk. "While we may be more responsible with what we launch today, our current efforts are not enough. "The amount of space debris in orbit continues to rise," the report said. Larger parts of spacecraft, including rocket debris, can survive the re-entry.Ī report by the European Space Agency last year said it had recorded more than 30,000 pieces of space debris. Ones that break up over time create debris that stays in space for many years, while others head back towards the Earth and burn up in its atmosphere. Photo: Nasaĭefunct satellites are usually moved to the "graveyard orbit", an area about 320km farther from the farthest active satellites orbiting Earth that space agencies and companies often use for retired spacecraft. Parts of the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager satellite will crash to Earth on April 19, 2023. Rhessi was decommissioned in 2018 and has since continued to circle the Earth in a low orbit. Nasa did not reveal the trajectory of the spacecraft nor over which country or ocean the spacecraft would appear. The space agency said the chances of harm coming to anyone on Earth was low, at about one in 2,467. "Nasa expects most of the spacecraft to burn up as it travels through the atmosphere but some components are expected to survive re-entry."
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