SpaceX and space debris: 25,000 course corrections to avoid crashing into something
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They were a few hundred in 1963 and today they are more or less 34 thousand: one more than 80-fold growth in exactly 60 years for objects orbiting the Earth. Space junk that is not only a pollution problem but also a complication for new rocket or satellite launches.
Confirmation came recently from SpaceX, one of Elon Musk’s many companies, which reported that its Starlink satellites had to make more than 25,000 course corrections over the past 6 months to avoid collisions with other spacecraft and debris. It’s a remarkable figure, it’s double the same maneuvers made in the previous semester and it’s also a figure set to rise: according to many analysts, satellites of this type will be forced to make even a million course corrections every 6 months in order not to crash into something.
Space
Strange lights in the sky over Northern Italy? It was just Starlink satellites going into orbit
by Emanuele Capone
What is Kessler Syndrome
It should be noted that all these objects are not large or very large: the European Space Agency, which has been keeping track of it for some time (here), estimates that the number of 33,890 refers to those larger than 10 centimeters. However, that they are small does not mean that they cannot be a problem: if those present in lower Earth orbit can burn on their return to our planet, those that remain at over 36 thousand kilometers above sea level they can continue to orbit for hundreds of years.
It is true that actual space collisions have so far been rare: the last one was in 2021, when a Chinese satellite crashed into a piece of a rocket launched into space in 1996, but before that there had been no others in the previous 10 years. And yet, this growing space junk contributes to increasing the fear that the scenario imagined by the so-called will occur Kessler syndrome (Star Wars has nothing to do with it: that was the Kessel Run), according to which a constant increase in debris would cause an increase in collisions, which would cause an increase in debris and another increase in collisions, in a spiral that would end up making substantially Earth orbit is unusable.
If we add to these fears the fact that SpaceX itself has repeatedly reiterated its intention to increase the current number of satellites from 4,000 to 30,000 in the coming years, we understand why this is an issue to be addressed now and not in the near future.
@capoema
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