Space Debris (Space Junk).
Jan 29, 2023
Had the two objects collided, thousands of more pieces of debris could have been created.
Image above: An illustration of Earth orbit overcrowded with space junk and orbital debris. Image Credits: Evgeniy Shkolenko/Getty Images.
Low Earth orbit was the site of a near-miss on Jan. 27, 2023 that had the potential to create thousands of pieces of hazardous space debris.
Satellite monitoring and collision detection firm LeoLabs spotted a near-miss between two defunct Soviet space objects, a rocket body and dead spy satellite, that missed one another by an incredibly small margin. According to a LeoLabs statement posted to Twitter on Friday (Jan. 27), the two objects missed one another by a distance of 20 feet (6 meters), with a margin of error of "only a few tens of meters."
While the two objects luckily did not collide, LeoLabs says the incident was very close to being a "worst-case scenario" that could have generated thousands of more pieces of space debris in a ripple effect. As low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes increasingly crowded, such close calls are becoming more common, highlighting the very real threat to the environment in which the International Space Station (ISS) and thousands of critical satellites operate.
Space Junk! See how much orbital debris has grown since 1960
Video above: According to LeoLabs, the two objects that narrowly missed one another were a defunct SL-8 rocket body and Cosmos 2361, a now-dead Russian spy satellite designed to intercept electronic signals such as radio communications or radar transmissions. Cosmos 2361 was launched in 1998, according to NASA, while the SL-8 is a U.S. Department of Defense nomenclature for the Kosmos-3 family of Soviet rockets that first entered service in 1964 and continued flying through 2009. Video Credit: NASA.
The near-miss happened in what LeoLabs calls a "bad neighborhood" in LEO that spans from 590 to 652 miles in altitude (950 to 1050 kilometers). "This region has significant debris-generating potential in #LEO due to a mix of breakup events and abandoned derelict objects," LeoLabs wrote in another Twitter post (opens in new tab) Friday (Jan. 27). "In particular, this region is host to ~160 SL-8 rocket bodies along with their ~160 payloads deployed over 20 years ago." LeoLabs added that there were 1,400 similar near-misses in this region of LEO between June and September 2022 alone.
LeoLabs on Twitter
Incidents such as these underscore the need for new strategies at mitigating or removing orbital debris from LEO. There are currently close to 30,000 pieces of orbital debris being tracked by the Department of Defense, but many more are lurking that are too small to be detected, according to NASA (opens in new tab).
The threat that orbital debris poses routinely makes itself known. The ISS, which orbits lower than this recent near miss at around 254 miles (408 km), has had to perform numerous avoidance maneuvers in recent months to dodge space junk. A minuscule object, possibly a piece of orbital debris, is thought to be responsible for a leak aboard a Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the ISS.
Distribution of space debris in orbit around Earth. Video Credit: ESA
As more and more pieces of debris accumulate in Earth orbit, collisions between them can generate even more fragments in a frightening theoretical ripple effect known as the Kessler Syndrome. If left unmitigated, the theory proposes that cascading space debris impacts could someday hinder humanity's space ambitions by rendering the space around Earth unpassable. To try and remedy the situation, a large number of concepts for how to decrease space debris are currently being proposed and tested worldwide.
Related articles:
Russia to launch mission to rescue stranded ISS crew after meteoroid strike
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2023/01/russia-to-launch-mission-to-rescue.html
The current state of space debris
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-current-state-of-space-debris.html
The cost of space debris
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-cost-of-space-debris.html
CleanSat: new satellite technologies for cleaner low orbits
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2015/01/cleansat-new-satellite-technologies-for.html
The number of space debris reached a "critical point"
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2011/09/number-of-space-debris-reached-critical.html
Related links:
LeoLabs: https://leolabs.space/
NASA Orbital Debris Program Office: https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/
Kessler Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Space Object Catalog:
https://www.space-track.org/
https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/web/cat/index.html
Images (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Text, Credits: LeoLabs/Space.com/Brett Tingley.
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