Space Debris Mitigation - Revised

Abstract

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first on-orbit fragmentation. It was on June 29, 1961 that a U.S. Ablestar upper stage exploded into some 300 large pieces, adding to the then official record of the total orbital debris population of only 54 fragments. Following this event and more than 200 known satellite fragmentations, the population of space debris continues to overwhelm the space environment, and its growth – as commented by U.S. Chairwoman Gabrielle Giffords before the Subcommittee on Space Aeronautics on ‘Keeping the Space Environment Safe for Civil and Commercial Users’ – is ‘relentless’. Merely after a half of century or more of space-related activity, ‘the current orbital debris environment has already reached a “tipping point.” That is, the amount of debris – in terms of the population of large debris objects, as well as overall mass of debris in orbit – currently in orbit has reached a threshold where it will continually collide with itself, further increasing the population of orbital debris. This increase will lead to corresponding increases in spacecraft failures, which will only create more feedback into the system, increasing the debris population growth rate’. With such foreseeable outcome fated to the orbits, retired NASA space debris expert, Donald Kessler grimly states that: ‘We’ve lost control of the [space] environment’. This article aims to educate the reader that debris is a type of environmental pollution that can potentially remain in space permanently; and such orbiting fragments significant affects the space environment itself and threats the enjoyment of the space community in using and exploring outer space with the risks of physical damage to their space assets and interferences to space operations; and, if the population rate of such produced fragment is inadequately controlled, that future sustainability development in accessing and using space would be stifled. To this end, this article shall explore the various meanings and sources of space debris. It quantifies the magnitude of debris population, highlighting that the rate of its creation exceeds the rate of its removal, and attributes the recent accumulative rise of on-orbit debris to three events involving the three worst debris-polluting offenders – China, Russia and the United States. The Chapter also reflects the reaction of the space community, surveying and measuring the legal effectiveness of international efforts to manage the debris problem.