{"id":34175,"date":"2023-09-14T09:39:33","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T08:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=34175"},"modified":"2023-09-14T09:39:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T08:39:33","slug":"ensuring-success-in-growing-space-sector-remains-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/ensuring-success-in-growing-space-sector-remains-sustainable\/34175\/","title":{"rendered":"Ensuring our success in the growing space sector remains sustainable"},"content":{"rendered":"
The growing space sector is now more profound than ever. Humans have been launching satellites, space probes, and themselves to space for over 60 years. Back then, nobody could have predicted that one of Earth\u2019s currently most pressing problems \u2013 waste \u2013 would also become an issue in space.<\/p>\n
Surely space is vast enough that there\u2019s, well, space, for everything? Unfortunately, that\u2019s not the case closer to home, where commercial and government space actors fight to own real estate in Earth\u2019s orbits.<\/p>\n
Earth has multiple orbits for satellites<\/a> and spacecraft to be operated from \u2013 Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit, Geostationary Orbit, and many others, depending on the purpose.<\/p>\n The growing space sector is now facing the consequences of its actions: having useful satellites in space is great until there are too many.<\/p>\n About 7,000 commercial and government satellites are already in space, addressing everything from earth observation for improved wildfire predictions to telecommunications for always-on connectivity.<\/p>\n The exponential increase of objects in space has been driven by the falling cost of launch to space, enabling many new business models to close. Some estimates suggest the number of operational satellites launched to space could quadruple in the next decade, breaching 30,000.<\/p>\n Space debris refers to remnants of old satellites, launch vehicles, or defunct objects that no longer serve their purpose. While not all of these tens of thousands of satellites will always remain operational, they will still stay in orbit, causing traffic jams for everyone else.<\/p>\n NASA estimates that there are over 27,000 pieces of orbital debris, which has been tracked by the Department of Defense\u2019s Space Surveillance Network.<\/p>\n However, there are guaranteed to be many more, as this number refers to those larger than a baseball. It is expected that there are hundreds of millions which are smaller than a millimetre across. Smaller-sized debris isn\u2019t any less dangerous. Tiny flecks of paint travelling up to 17,500mph in space have been shown to severely damage spacecraft windows.<\/p>\n While damage has, up until now, been limited to a handful of collisions or near-passes, the growing space sector means there is future risk around the domino effect of these collisions. This could lead to a cascade in the amount of debris in space.<\/p>\n This is known as the Kessler syndrome: each collision produces even more unpredictable debris, which can, in turn, strike other objects in space, leading to a chain reaction. This could severely threaten safe operations in space in decades to come.<\/p>\n The most pertinent piece of regulation around managing space debris was published in late 2022.<\/p>\n A ruling by the Federal Communications Commission stated that all defunct spacecraft in orbits under 2000km (the most congested areas) must be de-orbited within five years of their end of life<\/a>. This applies to US satellites or those selling to the US, accounting for a large part of the current market.<\/p>\n This ruling has provided fresh fuel for efforts around managing space junk and mitigating its potentially catastrophic effects within the growing space sector.<\/p>\n Commercial space startups addressing space debris greatly benefit from the narrative. There are multiple ways to address the issue at hand, and at Seraphim, we believe a multi-pronged is likely the best approach. This includes:<\/p>\n Currently, telescopes on Earth can be used to track space debris down to about ten centimetres in size. However, there are hundreds of thousands of objects smaller than this that we can\u2019t see.<\/p>\nWhy is space debris an issue?<\/h3>\n
What can we do about it?<\/h3>\n
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How are companies addressing the issue?<\/h3>\n