Mined space
What is the Kessler syndrome and what it threatens us.
The space age began in 1957, may end up not waiting for his century. Flights into space are becoming more dangerous due to the proliferation of orbiting debris.
One of the first on space debris spoke Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw LEM: “Around the largest planet of Sirius, a true pearl of this planetary system, there was a ring like Saturn’s rings, but consists of empty beer and lemonade bottles”.
In 1964 these words from “the memoirs of Ijon Pacific” seemed a joke, and now a ring around the Earth was already formed. It is, of course, not visible to the eye, but to take protective measures already have.
Perhaps, unsurpassed in the number of objects (but not the most dangerous) ejection of debris carried out by the United States in the framework of the project “Hanover”. And it happened a year before the “performance” iyona Pacific. Then in a polar orbit with a height of 3500-3800 miles was sprayed 480 million of the thinnest copper wire-dipole (length of 17.8 mm and a thickness of 17.8 microns). The idea was to create in the space an artificial environment reflect radio waves for long-distance communication instead of the unreliable ionosphere.
Vs experiment was made by the astronomers from the British Royal society in the USSR newspaper “Pravda” came out with the headline “USA clog up space.”
TASS made a statement that “the U.S. military ignores the dangerous consequences that may arise for humanity in connection with the clogging of the near-earth space as a result of such experiments.” Anyway, the project was soon closed. Most of the needles due to the very small size fell from orbit within 10 years. But even by 2016 is still being tracked 38 clumps of needles, which are not divided upon release, and being relatively large objects that do not descend from orbit.
In may—June 2007 on the service module of the ISS Zvezda has established 17 additional ballistic panels for protection from small space debris. To do this, cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Fyodor Yurchikhin twice went into space. During the second of these remedies on the surface of the module Zarya was found the hole, “like a bullet”. Such a hole 6 mm in diameter, punched a particle size of 1-2 mm, seen in 2013, solar battery station astronaut Chris Hadfield. Until now, such damage is not caused the serious damage to the station. However, the risk of unexpectedly to the hole is always there.
Bullet hole – a small stone from the universe went through our solar array. Glad it missed the hull. pic.twitter.com/iBHFVfp1p8
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) April 29, 2013
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In the United States, Russia and the EU are constantly monitoring space debris. Today is tracked more than 17.5 thousand objects. From them 6 thousand current and non-working spacecraft and rocket stages, and nearly 10 thousand — coarse fragments (5-10 cm or more). For all of these objects are determined orbit, but the accurate prediction of their movement impossible.
First, there are measurement errors of the positions and velocities, and second, the orbit of debris all the time change a little. Primarily on their movement affects the resistance of the atmosphere, the density of which is at high altitude intermittent. Defined contribution gives the solar light pressure, which depends on the reflective properties and the orientation of an object. There is an influence of the geomagnetic field. Finally, gravitational perturbations from the moon, the planets and the unequal distribution of mass inside the Earth can not be absolutely accurate accounting. Therefore, “garbage” objects, despite its purely classical nature, represented in practice by clouds of probability.