Space: The final frontier is fraught with danger… and ever since we started launching things into orbit, that danger has often been of our own doing. As Dr. Nilton Renno at the University of Michigan explains it, a lot of space junk is moving at “the order of 10 km/s (~22,000 mph), much faster than a rifle bullet, for example… therefore a small millimeter-sized debris colliding with a spacecraft can destroy that spacecraft.”
While the danger from physical impact is impressive in its own right, it’s not the only concern: “Electromagnetic pulse caused by the collision can damage the sensitive electronics of the spacecraft.
In low-earth orbit — within about 2000 kilometers — manmade objects like spent rocket boosters and shattered satellites dominate the debris field. Higher than that, meteoroids are the big concern… natural, but moving even faster to threaten space travel. Dr. Renno offers that “Michigan has a 6.5-meter telescope in Chile, and you can look up just at the reflection of sunlight to detect 10-centimeter-sized debris.”
10 centimeters is about the size of a softball — and that thing moving at low Earth orbit speeds packs about as much energy as a city bus on the highway. NASA’s had its fair share of run-ins and near-misses, with debris damaging the International Space Station’s robotic arm in 2021, and earlier in 2024, astronauts had to shelter in place after an old Russian satellite broke apart.
Dr. Renno and his fellow Wolverines have been developing a method to track debris down to millimeter sizes, using some tech we’ve already had for decades. “NASA has those big antennas to communicate with spacecraft in deep space,” explains Dr. Renno. “You beam a very strong radar wave, and measure the reflectance with another big antenna.”
The U of M team hypothesized we could fine-tune collision tracking, thanks to those electromagnetic pulses they put out — and, in some cases, temperatures hotter than the surface of the Sun. Good thing, too, since the vast majority of the 170 million pieces of debris can’t be found by current means. It turns out, those impacts are likely happening at least once every 10 seconds somewhere in orbit — and “if you include meteoroids too, it’s one every second. Every second, two [pieces of] debris are colliding, larger than 10 microns in diameter.
More lab testing is needed before their model is ready for primetime, but Dr. Renno hopes their tracking can help with evasive maneuvers and mitigation: “What excites me the most is solving this puzzle. Being able to help the space community is rewarding.”
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This article was published by WTVG on 2024-11-26 16:27:00
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