Space junk cleanup poses grand challenge
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Orbital debris meets operational satellite. The build-up of
human-created orbital debris has reached a critical point.
Credit: CNES
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The buildup of space debris orbiting the Earth, which poses a threat
to spacecraft and the environment, has reached a critical point,
scientists say.
The space junk trend no longer can be reversed by full compliance
with mitigation measures now in place; it will get worse without
more-aggressive action such as active debris removal, or ADR.
And that just might pose the biggest engineering challenge of the
21st century, according to J C Liou of the Orbital Debris Program Office
at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre.
“As the international community gradually reaches a consensus on the
need for ADR, the focus will shift from environment modelling to
completely different challenges: technology development, systems
engineering, and operations,” Liou explained in the July edition of
NASA’s Orbital Debris Quarterly News, issued by his office in Houston.
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