Ghost rocket, ASAT test creates ‘ticking time bomb’ for astronauts

Decades of rocket launches into orbit, interspersed with anti-satellite missile launches that shatter spacecraft orbiting the Earth, have created a constantly moving minefield around the Earth. , will threaten astronauts and the space station for years to come.

A ghost rocket stage spinning at 28,000 kilometers per hour and missile debris from an exploding ASAT could combine to form a “ticking time bomb,” endangering human spaceflight and the constellation of satellites surrounding Earth, the world says. said Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow and leading astronaut. Orbit mapping company LeoLabs.

Dr. McKnight, one of the planet’s foremost spacecraft trackers, said in an interview that he intends to envision urgent solutions to these growing dangers at the International Astronautical Congress, which opens next week in Milan. Vanguard astronomers like McKnight from around the world gather at the IAC’s annual gathering to develop strategies to secure the future of the entire spaceflight sector.

The author of a series of notable studies on space debris and its potential to cause catastrophic collisions, McKnight leads the science team at Silicon Valley-based LEO Lab and works in low Earth orbit (LEO). operates a global web of phased array radars that scan Map more than 20,000 objects in flight, from abandoned rockets to clouds of ASAT debris orbiting Earth.

LeoLabs combines cutting-edge radar imagery and predictive AI tools to model impending on-orbit threats and notify satellite operators and other space stakeholders of high-probability collisions waiting in the wings. I will.

The organization’s founder and chief operating officer, Dan Separy, issued an eerie oracle on the LeoLab website, warning that clouds of missile debris and clusters of derelict rockets are spinning around the world. “Disasters in low Earth orbit are inevitable.”

He said LeoLab has tracked tens of thousands of space objects at least 10 centimeters or larger, but so far it has tracked tens of thousands of space objects from previous explosions spread across the orbital plane through which the International Space Station passes. It is technically impossible to map small pieces of the planet. .

With this proliferation of rogue debris, “this harsh reality means it’s not a question of if a collision will occur, but when,” he says.

Dr. Separy predicts that “potential disasters at LEO” range from astronauts being blown up with “lethal small fragments” to attacks on “operational payloads by adversaries.” .

In his “Low Earth Orbit Disaster Guide,” tiny debris less than 1 centimeter in orbit can be found on astronauts performing extravehicular activities outside the International Space Station or floating outside space capsules. They warn that it can be fatal for pilots.

“Any debris larger than a few millimeters is likely to be fatal to astronauts,” said Separy, who earned his engineering doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

The world got a glimpse of this danger when a small piece of debris punctured a 5mm hole in Canadarm2, a robot mounted outside the ISS. “Simply put, what we cannot see has the potential to kill us,” he says.

But Darren McKnight says jettisoned rocket stages loitering in the upper reaches of low Earth orbit may pose the biggest threat to future space missions (both human and robotic).

At the height of the First Space Race and the First Cold War, the twin superpowers routinely removed spent upper stages from orbit, and never struck a deal to abolish this space obstacle course. There wasn’t, he says.

Like ghosts of the past haunting the modern heavens, two of these giant rocket bodies ( Two planes, one Soviet and one American, came within 500 meters of each other before the collision. Democratic Ukraine.

McKnight said the impact was a catastrophe, sending debris flying “for hundreds of kilometers” and creating a deadly fragmentation dagger that “lingers for centuries.” , which would pose a danger to space capsules and satellites for generations.

The Zenit rocket in the Kremlin loft involved in the narrowly avoided crash is one of 18 identical phantom Russian spacecraft that still plague the high-risk graveyard swirling around the planet. He added that it is not too much.

All 18 are on the Universe’s Most Wanted List and are part of the “Top 50 Objects” that LeoLab says need to be captured and removed from LEO.

Rogue rockets from space powers pose an enormous threat to human exploration just above Earth’s atmosphere, and space agencies around the world should take immediate action to eliminate these dangers. , says Ian Christensen, senior director of the Washington-based Secure World Foundation. The Foundation is an avant-garde think tank that aims to unite scholars, politicians, and spacecraft operators from across the continent to ensure peace across the superglobe and achieve its goals.

Christensen, who worked with LeoLab’s McKnight to help organize the Space Summit in New Zealand earlier this year and focused on ultimately removing the Spectral spacecraft from orbit, said in an interview that many He said that cosmologists have concluded that “it is probably the only cause that produces large debris.” The collision will galvanize real international resolve and commitment to debris removal missions. ”

“The biggest diplomatic challenge is convincing the three spaceflight powers responsible for 90% of the risks (the US, Russia and China) to start remediating their own large debris,” he added. An unmanned rocket that flies in an orbital zone 800 to 1000 kilometers above the Earth.

Christensen, a former researcher at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, is spearheading a precursor mission to active debris removal flights.The British, Japanese and European space agencies are in the process of throwing their spacecraft into the sky. They say they are far ahead of the superpowers.

In a new study he co-authored with McKnight to be presented at the International Astronautical Congress, Christensen says space’s high-traffic orbital zones could be exploited to unlock the potential of the ongoing second space race. It says it depends on a collective, global movement to wipe it out. Space Race I detritus.

A huge barricade to that goal, he says, is that there is currently “no economic incentive to remove the debris.” [and] There is no economic incentive to truly avoid debris generation. ”

But that could be about to change in a big way, he predicts: “The space economy is predicted to grow to more than $1 trillion by 2040, and ADR [Active Debris Removal missions] In theory it should be affordable. ”

Both Christensen and McKnight praised the introduction of the Orbit Act in the U.S. Senate, which aims to “establish a demonstration program to proactively remediate debris in orbit,” adding that It said it would provide $150 million in initial funding to carry out technology demonstrations related to withdrawal. The most dangerous space object.

Although the bill has never been voted on in the House of Representatives, McKnight told me that Leo Labs is pushing for its passage and also asking the White House to support it.

Meanwhile, McKnight said he has worked with cosmologists from around the world to produce a body of cutting-edge research to present at the IAC conference in Milan.

The most fascinating experiment was carried out jointly by McKnight, two astronomers from the University of Bern, and scientists from MAXAR, which operates a constellation of advanced observation satellites. focused on capturing images of the flight path of the aircraft.

Each partner in the experiment collected stunning images of the rockets to determine each spacecraft’s “tipping rate” and whether it is suitable to be captured and deorbited by future space tugs. . MAXAR’s photos of one candidate spacecraft are so high-resolution that the team could potentially sculpt an accurate digital twin of the rocket to simulate future capture missions.

Their advances in accurately charting and modeling these abandoned spacecraft “could be extremely useful for ADR operations.” [deorbiting missions] “immediately,” say the American and Swiss researchers.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Manber, one of New Space’s leading technology visionaries, said he is finalizing a futuristic blueprint for recovering rockets that have been launched and saving them from crashing into the Southern Ocean. .

Manber, president of international and space station operations at Voyager Space, which is designing Star Lab, the most technologically advanced space station scheduled to launch before the ISS retires six years from now, said these rescued rockets He said he is aiming to start converting the station module into a station module. Beyond the 2030s.

He said that with breakthroughs in the development of orbital vehicles and space robotics, Voyager will be able to capture these ejected spacecraft and return them to orbital habitats and science labs within the next decade. They may begin sending out recovery teams piloted by droids to make that change.

Voyager has already received $217 million from NASA under the Space Act Agreement to develop an independent orbital outpost, but in reality there will be a series of Star Lab stations in the future, he said. say. Starlab 3 could be the first floating factory operated by robots, he added, and would redesign the used stage into a space station “for low-Earth orbit and lunar orbit.” .