Credit: CNES
The report — Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft – An Assessment of NASA’s Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Programs – has been issued by the National Research Council.
“The current space environment is growing increasingly hazardous to spacecraft and astronauts,” said Donald Kessler, chair of the committee that wrote the report and retired head of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office.
“NASA needs to determine the best path forward for tackling the multifaceted problems caused by meteoroids and orbital debris that put human and robotic space operations at risk,” Kessler said in a press statement.
Tipping point reached
As highlighted in the report, some scenarios generated by the agency’s meteoroid and orbital debris models show that debris has reached a “tipping point,” with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures.
In addition, collisions with debris have disabled and even destroyed satellites in the past; a recent near-miss of the International Space Station underscores the value in monitoring and tracking orbital debris as precisely as possible.
Removing debris
Removal of orbital debris introduces another set of complexities, the report adds, because only about 30 percent of the objects can be attributed to the United States.
“The Cold War is over, but the acute sensitivity regarding satellite technology remains,” explained committee vice chair George Gleghorn, former vice president and chief engineer for the TRW Space and Technology Group.
Although NASA has identified the need for removing debris, the agency and U.S. government as a whole have not fully examined the economic, technological, political, and legal considerations, the report says.
For example, according to international legal principle, no nation may salvage or otherwise collect other nations’ space objects.
Therefore, the report recommends, that NASA should engage the U.S. Department of State in the legal requirements and diplomatic aspects of active debris removal.
The study was sponsored by NASA.
For more information on the report, go to:
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/xpedio/groups/depssite/documents/webpage/deps_064361.pdf
By Leonard David