ESA Mars orbiters support NASA Perseverance landing

 

ESA - European Space Agency patch.

Feb. 11, 2021

- On 18 February, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will land on the Red Planet

- ESA’s Mars orbiters – the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express – are supporting the landing

- TGO will relay important data from Perseverance to Earth as soon as four hours after landing

- Mars Express is monitoring the local conditions at the landing site, Jezero Crater

- Both ESA orbiters are providing context images of the region

- TGO will attempt to image the rover in the weeks after landing

True-colour image of Mars seen by OSIRIS

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is due to land on the Red Planet at 21:43 CET on 18 February 2021. In order to communicate with Earth from its landing site in Jezero Crater, the rover will rely on spacecraft orbiting Mars to relay the images and other data it collects back to Earth and pass on the commands from engineers beamed across space in the other direction.

Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars

The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) is one of these spacecraft. As its orbit takes it over the landing site, TGO will enter communication windows with Perseverance and relay data between Earth and the rover via a network of deep space ground stations on Earth, including ESA’s Estrack network.

Helping Perseverance phone home

The data transmitted by Perseverance in its first hours and days on Mars will be vital to the mission. Did the rover land safely? Are all of its systems functional?

To ensure that this information gets to the engineers on Earth as quickly as possible, TGO and NASA’s mars orbiters will be able to communicate with deep space ground stations on Earth almost twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for the first two weeks after landing. ESA’s ground station network will provide roughly 14 hours a day of this ‘low-latency’ coverage.

“TGO will provide low-latency data relay support to Perseverance during this period, and continue to provide routine relay support afterwards,” says ESA’s Peter Schmitz, TGO Spacecraft Operations Manager. “Our first relay session with TGO will start at 02:07 CET on 19 February, just four hours after landing.”

How ESA is Helping NASA's Mars lander phone home

The Trace Gas Orbiter is the first of two missions of the ExoMars programme - a joint endeavour between ESA and Roscosmos. ExoMars is attempting to determine whether life has ever existed on the Red Planet. TGO arrived at Mars in October 2016 and is conducting a detailed study of the atmosphere and mapping signatures of water below the planet’s surface. The orbiter is operated from ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, where mission controllers already have a lot of experience relaying data from existing Mars landers.

“The orbiter usually supports one relay session per lander per day, but from 18 February, we will be supporting an additional two sessions per day for Perseverance,” says Schmitz. “From then on, TGO will relay twice the volume of data to and from the surface of Mars as it does now.”

In total, Perseverance will communicate with NASA or ESA Mars orbiters at least twice a day, and typically four to six times. During these sessions, data and images will be sent to NASA to help the operations team plan the rover’s activities for the following days.

Monitoring conditions at Jezero

Mars Express is Europe’s first mission to the Red Planet. Since beginning operations in 2004, the durable orbiter has helped answer fundamental questions about the geology, atmosphere, surface environment, history of water and potential for life on Mars.

Mars Express

The high-resolution camera on board Mars Express has sent back thousands of dramatic, 3D views of the martian surface, including those used to produce a virtual flight over Jezero Crater, the planned landing site for Perseverance.

The spacecraft’s Visual Monitoring Camera – also known as the ‘Mars Webcam’ – is providing additional wide context views of the landing region.

The Mars Express Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) is monitoring local conditions at Jezero Crater. The information it collects is passed on to the Perseverance Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) team at NASA and is included in their daily report during the two weeks leading up to the landing.

The Mars Webcam images NASA rover's landing region

“The engineers working with EDL systems need precise information on the density of the Martian atmosphere above the site at the time of landing and how it changes with altitude,” says Marco Giuranna, PFS Principal Investigator from Istituto Fisica Spazio Interplanetario in Rome, Italy.

“Having up-to-date knowledge of the temperature, pressure, dust and ice conditions in the atmosphere is crucial for understanding its density and predicting and analysing the trajectory of the rover’s descent to the surface of the Red Planet.”

Follow @esaoperations on Twitter for live updates as TGO establishes communications with Perseverance at 02:07 CET on 19 February.

Related links:

ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC): https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESOC/Where_missions_come_alive

ESA’s Estrack network: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/ESA_Ground_Stations/Estrack_ground_stations

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO): https://exploration.esa.int/web/mars/-/46475-trace-gas-orbiter

Mars Express: http://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express

Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS): https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Mars_Express_instruments

Images, Text, Credits: ESA & MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO/ATG medialab/Alex Lutkus.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Nervous System, Exercise Research Fills Science Schedule Wednesday

 

ISS - Expedition 64 Mission patch.

Feb. 10, 2021

Human research was the main science focus aboard the International Space Station today. The Expedition 64 crew members also worked on spacesuit maintenance.

The space-exposed human nervous system may impact how an astronaut grips and manipulates objects during a mission. NASA Flight Engineers Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover participated in the GRIP study today that could help engineers and doctors develop better spacecraft interfaces and treat neurological conditions on Earth.

Image above: Expedition 64 Flight Engineers (from left) Kate Rubins and Shannon Walker called down to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today and talked about science on the space station. Image Credit: NASA TV.

Glover also checked out components on safety jetpacks that an astronaut would use in the unlikely event a spacewalker became untethered from the space station. NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker worked during the afternoon on batteries that keep U.S. spacesuit life support systems powered during spacewalks.

NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins tried on the experimental AstroRad radiation protection vest during the afternoon testing it for fit and comfort while working. Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) serviced the Cell Biology Experiment Facility, an incubator that cultivates cells and plants for research, throughout the day.

Image above: Russia's Progress 76 resupply ship, packed with nearly three tons of food, fuel and supplies, approaches the International Space Station above the eastern European nation of Ukraine on July 23, 2020. Image Credit: NASA.

Exercise research is also important as flight surgeons learn to maximize the effects of a crew member’s workout to account for the lack of gravity. Cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov strapped sensors to themselves and jogged on the Russian treadmill on Wednesday. Data will be sent down to doctors to review how a cosmonaut’s body adjusts to working out in space.

Related article:

NASA Television to Air Space Station Cargo Ship Launch, Docking
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-television-to-air-space-station-cargo-ship-launch-docking-2

Related links:

Expedition 64: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition64/index.html

GRIP study: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1188

AstroRad: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7803

Cell Biology Experiment Facility: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=333

Exercise research: https://www.energia.ru/en/iss/researches/human/26.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Deep Jet Streams in Jupiter’s Atmosphere

 

NASA - JUNO Mission logo.

Feb 10, 2021

This view of Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere from NASA’s Juno spacecraft includes several of the planet’s southern jet streams. Using data from Juno’s instruments, scientists discovered that Jupiter’s powerful atmospheric jet streams extend far deeper than previously imagined. Evidence from Juno shows the jet streams and belts penetrate about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) down into the planet.

The storm known as the Great Red Spot is also visible on the horizon, nearly rotated out of view as Juno sped away from Jupiter at about 30 miles per second (48 kilometers per second), which is more than 100,000 mph (160,900 kilometers per hour).

Citizen scientist Tanya Oleksuik created this color-enhanced image using data from the JunoCam camera. The original image was taken on Dec. 30, 2020 as the Juno spacecraft performed its 31st close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, the spacecraft was about 31,000 miles (about 50,000 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 50 degrees South.

JUNO spacecraft orbiting Jupiter

JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing.  More information about NASA citizen science can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.

More information about Juno is at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu. For more about this finding and other science results, see https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/science-findings.

Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Image processing by Tanya Oleksuik © CC NC SA/Animation: NASA/Text Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

The Coalsack Nebula

 

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

Feb 10, 2021

This stunning image captures a small region on the edge of the inky Coalsack Nebula, or Caldwell 99. Caldwell 99 is a dark nebula — a dense cloud of interstellar dust that completely blocks out visible wavelengths of light from objects behind it. The object at the center of the image is a (much smaller) protoplanetary nebula. The protoplanetary nebula phase is a late stage in the life of a star in which it has ejected a shell of hydrogen gas and is quickly heating up.

This stage only lasts for a few thousand years before the protoplanetary nebula’s central star reaches roughly 30,000 Kelvin (approximately 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit). At this point, the central star is producing enough energy to make its surrounding shell of gas glow, becoming what’s known as a planetary nebula.

For more information about Hubble, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Image Credits: NASA/ESA/Hubble/STScI/Text Credits: NASA/Yvette Smith.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA Weighs Options for Additional Crew Transportation for Spring Soyuz Mission to Space Station

 

NASA logo.

Feb 10, 2021

Soyuz spacecraft

A rotating crew of NASA and international astronauts have called the International Space Station home for more than 20 years. To ensure a consistent U.S. presence on the space station through the years, NASA has implemented safeguards to ensure crew transportation is always available.

NASA now is considering obtaining a supplemental seat on the upcoming spring Soyuz crew rotation mission for a NASA astronaut to add additional capability to the agency’s planning. The agency issued a public synopsis to identify all sources that potentially could provide the crew transportation service in the needed timeframe beyond the capability NASA already has in operation with the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

NASA has been working with Boeing and SpaceX to provide safe and reliable crew transportation to and from the International Space Station. The recent success of NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission and the launch and docking of the Crew-1 mission have been significant milestones in providing reliable transportation to the space station on American commercial spacecraft from American soil. The upcoming NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, as well as the second uncrewed flight test for Boeing’s Starliner demonstrate continued progress.

Securing an additional Soyuz seat assures the back-up capability of at least one U.S. crew member aboard the International Space Station in the event of a problem with either spacecraft. NASA is considering providing in-kind services for this supplemental crew transportation service, rather than an exchange of funds.

It has been NASA’s practice to fly mixed crews on spacecraft to ensure safe and continuous operations of the International Space Station. Due to operational constraints, crew members must fly to the station and return on the same spacecraft. The crew currently aboard the station (Kate Rubins and the Crew-1 astronauts) must return on Soyuz and Crew Dragon respectively in April/May. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 is expected to launch as planned April 20. However, if the mission launch is delayed or an event occurs while Crew-2 is in-orbit that requires a premature return, NASA risks not having a U.S. crew member aboard the International Space Station.

“At NASA, we have a phrase we use often – dissimilar redundancy. That’s NASA speak for saying we always have a back-up plan that ensures we have a path forward even if we encounter an issue with our initial approach,” said Robyn Gatens, acting director for the International Space Station at NASA Headquarters. “We look forward to the next crew rotation on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, and we’re looking to ensure we can continue to maximize our use of the station and minimize any risk by flying a U.S. astronaut on the upcoming spring Soyuz by providing in-kind services.”

The space station has hosted 242 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. Astronauts and cosmonauts have traveled to and from the orbiting laboratory in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and NASA’s space shuttle until its retirement in 2011.

Via the public synopsis, NASA aims to determine whether any sources could provide the crew transportation service in the needed timeframe. Submissions are due by Feb. 19.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): https://www.nasa.gov/

Image, Text, Credits: NASA/Brian Dunbar.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

ExoMars discovers new gas and traces water loss on Mars

 

ESA / ROSCOSMOS - ExoMars Mission patch.

Feb. 10, 2021

Sea salt embedded in the dusty surface of Mars and lofted into the planet’s atmosphere has led to the discovery of hydrogen chloride – the first time the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has detected a new gas. The spacecraft is also providing new information about how Mars is losing its water.

ExoMars observing water in the martian atmosphere

A major quest in Mars exploration is hunting for atmospheric gases linked to biological or geological activity, as well as understanding the past and present water inventory of the planet, to determine if Mars could ever have been habitable and if any water reservoirs could be accessible for future human exploration. Two new results from the ExoMars team published today in Science Advances unveil an entirely new class of chemistry and provide further insights into seasonal changes and surface-atmosphere interactions as driving forces behind the new observations.

A new chemistry

“We’ve discovered hydrogen chloride for the first time on Mars. This is the first detection of a halogen gas in the atmosphere of Mars, and represents a new chemical cycle to understand,” says Kevin Olsen from the University of Oxford, UK, one of the lead scientists of the discovery.

Hydrogen chloride gas, or HCl, comprises a hydrogen and chlorine atom. Mars scientists were always on the look-out for chlorine- or sulphur-based gases because they are possible indicators of volcanic activity. But the nature of the hydrogen chloride observations – the fact that it was detected in very distant locations at the same time, and the lack of other gases that would be expected from volcanic activity – points to a different source. That is, the discovery suggests an entirely new surface-atmosphere interaction driven by the dust seasons on Mars that had not previously been explored.

Discovering new gases on Mars

In a process very similar to that seen on Earth, salts in the form of sodium chloride – remnants of evaporated oceans and embedded in the dusty surface of Mars – are lifted into the atmosphere by winds. Sunlight warms the atmosphere causing dust, together with water vapour released from ice caps, to rise. The salty dust reacts with atmospheric water to release chlorine, which itself then reacts with molecules containing hydrogen to create hydrogen chloride. Further reactions could see the chlorine or hydrochloric acid-rich dust return to the surface, perhaps as perchlorates, a class of salt made of oxygen and chlorine.

“You need water vapour to free chlorine and you need the by-products of water – hydrogen ­– to form hydrogen chloride. Water is critical in this chemistry,” says Kevin. “We also observe a correlation to dust: we see more hydrogen chloride when dust activity ramps up, a process linked to the seasonal heating of the southern hemisphere.”

How hydrogen chloride may be created on Mars

The team first spotted the gas during the global dust storm in 2018, observing it appear simultaneously in both northern and southern hemispheres, and witnessed its surprisingly quick disappearance again at the end of the seasonal dusty period. They are already looking into the data collected during the following dust season and see the HCl rising again.

“It is incredibly rewarding to see our sensitive instruments detecting a never-before-seen gas in the atmosphere of Mars,” says Oleg Korablev, principal investigator of the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite instrument that made the discovery. “Our analysis links the generation and decline of the hydrogen chloride gas to the surface of Mars.”

Extensive laboratory testing and new global atmospheric simulations will be needed to better understand the chlorine-based surface-atmosphere interaction, together with continued observations at Mars to confirm that the rise and fall of HCl is driven by the southern hemisphere summer.

“The discovery of the first new trace gas in the atmosphere of Mars is a major milestone for the Trace Gas Orbiter mission,” says Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist. “This is the first new class of gas discovered since the claimed observation of methane by ESA’s Mars Express in 2004, which motivated the search for other organic molecules and ultimately culminated in the development of the Trace Gas Orbiter mission, for which detecting new gases is a primary goal.”

Rising water vapour holds clues to climate evolution

As well as new gases, the Trace Gas Orbiter is refining our understanding of how Mars lost its water – a process which is also linked to seasonal changes.

Liquid water is once thought to have flowed across the surface of Mars as evidenced in the numerous examples of ancient dried out valleys and river channels. Today, it is mostly locked up in the ice caps and buried underground. Mars is still leaking water today, in the form of hydrogen and oxygen escaping from the atmosphere.

Understanding the interplay of potential water-bearing reservoirs and their seasonal and long-term behavior is key to understanding the evolution of the climate of Mars. This can be done through the study of water vapour and ‘semi-heavy’ water (where one hydrogen atom is replaced by a deuterium atom, a form of hydrogen with an additional neutron).

Tracking the history of water on Mars

“The deuterium to hydrogen ratio, D/H, is our chronometer – a powerful metric that tells us about the history of water on Mars, and how water loss evolved over time. Thanks to the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, we can now better understand and calibrate this chronometer and test for potential new reservoirs of water on Mars,” says Geronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the new result.

“With the Trace Gas Orbiter we can watch the path of the water isotopologues as they rise up into the atmosphere with a level of detail not possible before. Previous measurements only provided the average over the depth of the whole atmosphere. It is like we only had a 2D view before, now we can explore the atmosphere in 3D,” says Ann Carine Vandaele, principal investigator of the Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD) instrument that was used for this investigation.

ExoMars observing water in the martian atmosphere

The new measurements reveal dramatic variability in D/H with altitude and season as the water rises from its original location.“Interestingly, the data show that once water is fully vapourised, it mostly displays a common large enrichment in semi-heavy water, and a D/H ratio six times greater than Earth’s across all reservoirs on Mars, confirming that large amounts of water have been lost over time,” says Giuliano Liuzzi of American University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and one of the lead scientists of the investigation.

ExoMars data collected between April 2018 and April 2019 also showed three instances that accelerated water loss from the atmosphere: the global dust storm of 2018, a short but intense regional storm in January 2019, and water release from the south polar ice cap during summer months linked to seasonal change. Of particular note is a plume of rising water vapour during southern summer that would potentially inject water into the upper atmosphere on a seasonal and yearly basis.

Future coordinated observations with other spacecraft including NASA’s MAVEN, which focuses on the upper atmosphere, will provide complementary insights to the evolution of water over the martian year.

“The changing seasons on Mars, and in particular the relatively hot summer in the southern hemisphere seems to be the driving force behind our new observations such as the enhanced atmospheric water loss and the dust activity linked to the detection of hydrogen chloride, that we see in the two latest studies,” adds Håkan. “Trace Gas Orbiter observations are enabling us to explore the martian atmosphere like never before.”

How ExoMars studies the atmosphere

Notes for Editors:

"Transient HCl in the atmosphere of Mars" by Korablev et al, and "Water heavily fractionated as it ascends on Mars as revealed by ExoMars/NOMAD" by G. Villanueva et al are published in the 10 February 2021 issue of Science Advances.

The papers are based on data collected by the ACS and NOMAD instruments onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

A forthcoming paper "Seasonal reappearance of HCl in the atmosphere of Mars during the Mars year 35 dusty season" by K. Olsen et al has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Related links:

Science Advances:

"Transient HCl in the atmosphere of Mars"
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/7/eabe4386

"Water heavily fractionated as it ascends on Mars as revealed by ExoMars/NOMAD"
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/7/eabc8843

ExoMars: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Exploration/ExoMars

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA ExoMarsTGO project scientist/Håkan Svedhem/American  University/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Giuliano Liuzzi/Geronimo Villanueva/Department of Physics, University of Oxford/Kevin Olsen/ExoMars TGO NOMAD Principal Investigator/Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy/Ann Carine Vandaele/ExoMars TGO ACS Principal Investigator/Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences/Oleg Korablev.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

ESA & UNOOSA illustrate space debris problem

 

ESA - Clean Space logo.

Feb. 10, 2021

Space debris is an issue of global concern that threatens our continued use of near-Earth space for the benefit of humankind.

Geostationary orbit

To raise awareness about this growing problem, ESA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) have created a series of nine infographics and podcast episodes that tell the story of space debris, explain the risks and illustrate the solutions available to ensure future space exploration remains sustainable.

A limited natural resource

Space may seem vast, but the orbits around Earth in which satellites reside are a limited natural resource. Accidental collisions, explosions and even the intentional destruction of satellites have created millions of debris fragments, which, orbiting at high speed, can damage or destroy any functioning spacecraft that crosses their path.

Satellites vs Debris

As satellite technology becomes ever more relied upon, it gets increasingly important to protect these unique orbital regions that are essential for humanity to, for example, gather data for weather forecasting and to better understand extreme weather and our changing climate, as well as for internet access, communication and location services.

A concern to all nations

Unfortunately, the amount of space debris in orbit is increasing at an exponential rate. As a growing number of countries and actors begin space activities – a hugely positive development in general – and as satellite operations become more complex and the number of objects being launched, including in large constellations, rapidly increases, so too do the challenges posed to our space environment.

In 2019, ESA’s Space Safety programme was adopted as a key pillar in the Agency’s activities. The programme, an expansion of the former Space Situational Awareness programme, includes ESA’s Space Debris and Clean Space Offices, which are working to better understand the debris environment, prevent the creation of more debris, reduce the amount in orbit and lessen the impact of space activities on Earth.

In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly expressed its worry about the fragility of the space environment and the impact of space debris, which is an issue of concern to all nations. In 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), of which UNOOSA is Secretariat, adopted the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities (LTS Guidelines), which provide guidance to help ensure the safe and sustainable use of space. The LTS Guidelines were subsequently welcomed with appreciation by the United Nations General Assembly, and a new working group will continue multilateral discussions on the topic.

Raising awareness

This new series of infographics jointly produced by ESA and UNOOSA include attractive, easy to understand illustrations, facts and figures so that everyone, with or without any previous knowledge of spaceflight, can understand space debris and the challenge it poses. They cover topics such as how debris is created, how to avoid collisions, the risk to humans in space from debris and on Earth from re-entries, as well as technologies for safe debris mitigation and removal.

Each of the nine infographics is accompanied by a podcast with audio commentary from ESA and UNOOSA experts, who help navigate and understand the material. Infographics and podcasts will be released, once a week, over a period of nine weeks, starting on 10 February 2021, as well as via @UNOOSA and @ESA social media accounts.

Space debris

"A new era of space has begun, in which large constellations of thousands of satellites are being launched to the skies," said ESA Director Jan Wörner.

"What this ‘New Space’ makes possible – global internet access, telecommunications – it also threatens, as a rapid increase in space traffic may dramatically increase the chance of collisions. Innovative technologies, responsible behaviour and importantly international cooperation are fundamental to ensuring our future in space is sustainable."

UNOOSA Director Simonetta Di Pippo said: "Space has its limits. Space debris poses a clear risk for the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. UNOOSA welcomes working with our partners at ESA to disseminate clear, accessible public information on space debris that will increase awareness of the challenges they pose and contribute to strengthening international cooperation on mitigation measures."

Related links:

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA): https://www.unoosa.org/

ESA & UNOOSA podcasts: https://soundcloud.com/esa/satellites-vs-debris

Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities (LTS Guidelines): https://www.unoosa.org/res/oosadoc/data/documents/2018/aac_1052018crp/aac_1052018crp_20_0_html/AC105_2018_CRP20E.pdf

Space Debris: https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris

ESA’s Space Safety programme: https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Plans_for_the_future

ESA’s Clean Space: https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Clean_Space

Images, Animation, Text, Credits: ESA/ID&Sense/ONiRiXEL, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO/UNOOSA.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch