This article has been updated HERE.
Space is a mysterious place where many have not ventured to. Even though it is beyond Earth and humans have not inhabited there, we still need to strive to maintain its beauty and natural environment.
Billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk are currently competing in a ‘space race’ in the creation of space tourism, and development of permanent human settlement on the Moon, and even Mars. The release of the Space Policy Directive in December 2017 redirected the U.S. civil space programme to pursue a sustainable programme of exploration with a near-term emphasis of returning humans to the moon.
The fear is that if we don’t remove this space junk, it will become a significant threat to active satellites, which is becoming an increasingly more likely outcome, with a number of companies in the planning stages of launching thousands of satellites.
But who does this all Space junk actually belong to?
Well, data from Space Track has allowed RS Components to analyse just how many bits of debris are currently orbiting Earth and which country they belong to. In total, there are over 12,000 items in orbit – this just includes items created by humans. Initially, space debris was referred to as the natural debris found in the solar system such as comets, asteroids and fragments off meteoroids. But since Space shuttles are becoming more of a regular occurrence in Space now, the most notable pieces of debris are now from satellites.
The US has the most amount of debris in Space, with over 4,000 (4,037) items, closely followed by the Russian Commonwealth with 4,035 pieces orbiting.
China may be one of the biggest countries in the world, but this doesn’t mean they necessarily dominate Space. They have just over 3,500 (3,524) items of Space debris circulating Earth.
Countries such as France have a lot fewer items of debris (334) in orbit. The countries which have fewer than 100 items in orbit include India (81), Japan (52), the People’s Republic of China and Brazil (52), Canada (5) and the UK (1).
Recent research and development show that ‘hunter-killer’ satellites are on the way to help reduce and kill thousands of bits of debris orbiting the Earth. Despite the junk being potentially catastrophic to Space. All of these objects travel at orbital velocity, nearly 8 km per second and have the capacity to damage live functioning satellites, so need to be removed from Space as quickly and efficiently as possible.
RemoveDEBRIS is a satellite research project, that demonstrates various space debris removal technologies, by testing the efficacy of several technologies on mock targets in low earth orbit, so that any failings would not add more junk to space. The RemoveDEBRIS is aimed at performing key Active Debris Removal technology demonstrations to find the best way to capture the space debris orbiting the earth.
Take a look at the infographic by RS Components here to see just how much junk is orbiting our Earth and who it belongs to.
