must act quickly to reduce the number of space debris circling the Earth, which may pollute certain orbits in a few decades, international experts said Thursday at the end of a meeting in Germany. Pieces of rockets, satellites at the end of life, tools lost by astronauts … These objects are the residues of some 4,900 launches since the beginning of the space era, due to dislocations and pile-ups, “Kessler syndrome”, have continued to grow.
Since 1978, “the number has tripled” with “a collision multiplied,” warns Heiner Klinkrad, director of space debris to the European Space Agency (ESA), in an Internet retransmission. “With a few decades to such an environment becomes unstable,” he said during the 6th European Conference on Space Debris, held for four days in Darmstadt (Germany). More than 23,000 of debris larger than 10 cm are being identified by NASA and the ESA, the majority of low orbits (below 2 000 km) used by the Earth observation satellites or Station International Space (ISS).
To address the problem, it is necessary firstly to systematically placing satellites disabled on sidings where they will not interfere and will eventually disintegrate in Earth’s upper atmosphere . But we must also rid the space of larger debris, the rate of 5 to 10 items each year if we want to stabilize the situation. “There is a strong consensus on the urgent need to act now to begin removing the debris,” he assured Heiner Klinkrad after the Darmstadt conference, which brought together some 350 participants from the space industry.
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