“It doesn’t matter what country or political system you are from. Space brings us together”.

Valentina Tereshkova

The space frontier was conquered by mankind in 1957 and since then the nations have been racing to mark their presence in its rarefied field. A layman’s perception of space as an infinite void filled with the known planetary bodies, a finite number of satellites and some space stations needs a revision now as the nation’s looking to expand their scientific researches and information are regularly propelling satellites and other such vehicles into the space. As a matter of fact, space is treated as a crucible for innovation as the unique conditions existing there provide perfect opportunity for scientists to test various products and theories. Interestingly, this quest to gather more information, more knowledge and more learning about the universe, has left the space environment littered and strewn with rockets, payloads, satellites, and space ships gone defunct.

By the time this problem was realized, a pattern had already formed where all the stress was on successful launching and commissioning of the space device, with no thought given to what would happen to it at the end of its life-cycle. It was an assumption that on going defunct or inactive the device would fall back towards the Earth’s field, and on the re-entry get destroyed. In those early stages of space exploration, it never struck the scientific community that objects in such high orbits may actually never land up back on earth. Or even if they do, it would be after circling Earth thousands of times for many many years. For example, when a tool box got accidentally dropped by the astronaut, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper in 2008 in space, it was sighted a year later entering the Earth’s atmosphere (where it got disintegrated) after orbiting Earth for almost 4,000 times.

At present, 900,000 objects ( over one centimeter size) and 128 million (less than 1cm) are purposelessly orbiting the earth purposelessly.

Space debris also includes the stuff left behind in space by humans (as mentioned above, the dropped tools and spare parts). The fragments generated by wear and tear of the heavy equipment drift about in the space too. When these objects collide in the space, the problem gets further compounded. The dangers posed by space waste was deemed so high that the United Nations General Assembly approved a set of guidelines to tackle it. 

The space weapons race has only worsened the matter. US, Russia, China and India have already carried out successful anti-satellite weaponry missions. The use of Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS batteries or nuclear batteries) in satellites poses challenge of a different kind , of causing dangerous contamination if they reenter the earth’s atmosphere.

The need for faster telecommunications has led to the lower orbit of earth being criss-crossed by multitudes of communication satellites. The need to have more information about the weather conditions so as to make accurate weather predictions has added to the satellite numbers too.

Fortunately, the awareness to keep space trash in check has led to inventions and stipulations which might work to check the trash. The development of satellites which would remove themselves efficiently from the space environment at the end of their lives, removal of space junk by use of lasers, and the proposal to coat satellites with a unique polymeric foam which would cause them to burn as soon as they enter the earth’s atmosphere are some strides which might help. The latest technique used by Space X, where the rocket used to launch a satellite reverts to Earth after use, is also a practical way forward to bring down the space junk.