traffic on the road is annoying and we have all been dealing with that for a long time but humans
are not limited now we are dealing with space traffic sounds weird right but this is true space
junk is increasing and there are so many chances of the collision but what is the solution on earth
we have traffic lights and we have rules but how do we manage to do all this in space and as
always two space giants have come together to make something called crash prevention strategies hmm
this sounds interesting wanna know more stay tuned hello everyone welcome back to elon musk evolution
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miss any of our amazing videos let's begin for starters let's understand why it is a problem
as long as humans have been exploring space we've also been creating a bit of a mess
orbiting our planet are thousands of dead satellites along with bits of debris from all
the rockets we've launched over the years so this could pose an issue one day so what is space junk
any piece of machinery or debris left in space by humans is referred to as space rubbish or
space debris it can refer to large objects such as dead satellites that failed or were abandoned
in orbit at the conclusion of their missions it can also refer to smaller objects such as trash
or paint particles that have fallen from a rocket human-made debris has also been discovered on the
moon how much space junk is there well there are over 2 000 functioning satellites orbiting earth
at the moment there are also approximately 3 000 dead spacecraft polluting space
furthermore there are around 34 000 pieces of space debris larger than 10 centimeters in size
and millions of smaller bits that might be deadly if they collide with something else how does space
junk get into space all space junk is the product of items launched from earth that remain in orbit
until they re-enter the atmosphere some objects in lower orbits of a few hundred kilometers can
return rather quickly they frequently re-enter the atmosphere after a few years and for the most part
burn up preventing them from reaching the ground however debris or satellites left at
higher altitudes of 36 000 kilometers where communications and weather satellites are
frequently deployed in geostationary orbit can circle earth for hundreds or even thousands of
years some space debris is created as a result of collisions or anti-satellite tests in orbit
when two satellites crash they can shatter into thousands of new pieces
resulting in a large amount of new debris although it is unusual numerous countries including the us
china and india have employed missiles to practice destroying their own satellites this results in
the creation of thousands of additional pieces of hazardous debris what risks does space junk
pose to space exploration fortunately for the time being space trash does not represent a significant
threat to our exploration endeavors the main threat it poses is to other satellites in orbit to
avoid being hit and perhaps damaged or destroyed these satellites must shift out of the way of all
this incoming space trash every year hundreds of collision avoidance maneuvers are undertaken
by all satellites including the international space station where astronauts live fortunately
mishaps are uncommon a chinese satellite was destroyed following a collision in march 2021
prior to that the last time a spacecraft collided with and was destroyed by space debris
was in 2009 and none of the little quantity of space trash out there causes difficulty when
it comes to exploring beyond earth's orbit space junk in numbers two thousand active satellites in
earth's orbit and three thousand dead satellites in earth's orbit thirty four 000 pieces of space
junk larger than 10 centimeters not only this there are 128 million pieces of space junk larger
than one millimeter this number is huge and this is a serious problem so how can we clean up space
junk the united nations requests that all firms remove their satellites from orbit within 25 years
of the mission's completion this is difficult to enforce however because satellites can fail
several companies throughout the world have devised new solutions to this problem
among these are the removal of dead satellites from orbit and drawing them back into the
atmosphere where they will burn up we could achieve this by using a harpoon to capture
a satellite catching it in a massive net using magnets to capture it or even using lasers to
heat up the satellite increasing atmospheric drag and causing it to fall out of orbit
but what about crashing in space i mean there are still a huge number of working satellites in space
and that is why nasa and spacex collaborate to test satellite crash prevention strategies
swarms of autonomously navigating spacecraft have the potential to significantly improve
space operations they do however constitute a risk of collision nasa and spacex will begin
exploring ways for avoiding autonomous satellites from colliding through the starling mission nasa
originally intended to launch the starling mission into an orbit of 555 kilometers because spacex's
starlink broadband satellites operate in that orbit nasa's conjunction assessment risk analysis
team urged starling mission management to send the four starling cubesats 10 kilometers higher
because these two constellations are so close to one another we were able to look at how we will
deal with space traffic management in the future when there will be many more spacecraft in low
earth orbit said howard cannon nasa starling project manager at nasa ames research center
given the quantity of spacecraft that will be up there how can we avoid collisions cara starling
and starlink will explore collision avoidance tactics when starling completes a six-month set
of trials demonstrating swarm communications navigation and autonomy the spacecraft will
communicate their positions to ground systems then on the ground conjunction analysis software will
automatically say hey you're about to run into each other if you don't do something
canon explained the alert will be transmitted to the satellites which will prepare maneuvers
however before performing the moves the satellites will request consent from the ground systems
as traffic in low earth orbit increases this form of cooperation will become increasingly important
humans cannot be in the loop canon stated in the future this will all have to be automatic
mari baja an aerospace engineering associate professor at the university of texas at austin
concurred most people are unaware that there is a data pipeline problem in space jaw explained there
is no method to downlink data from satellites to the ground quickly enough to compute and transmit
commands back to the satellites given the current infrastructure there isn't enough time for that
starling and starlink will demonstrate how two constellations may talk to each other and start
playing out different criteria like a right-of-way according to jaw remove debris mission surrey
satellite technologies removed debris mission practiced catching a satellite with a massive net
in 2018 view the video from the surrey nanosats ssc mission delivery team these strategies
however are only applicable to huge satellites orbiting the earth we don't have a technique
to pick up tiny particles of trash such as paint and metal all we have to do now is wait for them
to organically re-enter the earth's atmosphere what is kessler syndrome donald kessler a nasa
scientist offered this proposal in 1978. he stated that if there was too much space trash in orbit
it could cause a chain reaction in which more and more objects collide and create new space junk
eventually rendering earth's orbit uninhabitable this would be an extreme circumstance
but some experts are concerned that a form of this could become an issue one day an action should be
done to prevent it from happening this concept was popularized in the film gravity will space
junk be a problem in the future it's possible several firms are developing massive new groups of
satellites known as mega constellations that will broadcast the internet to earth these companies
including spacex and amazon intended to launch thousands of satellites in order to provide global
satellite internet service if the mission is successful an additional 50 000 satellites could
be sent into space this also means that a lot more collision avoidance maneuvers will be required
the european space agency executed its first satellite maneuver to avoid colliding with a mega
constellation in september 2019 having to dodge active satellites is unusual we can reduce the
problem of space junk in the future by ensuring that satellites are removed from orbit in a fair
amount of time once they are no longer operating the earth's orbit enables us to study our planet
send communications and do other things it is critical that we use it in a sustainable manner
so that future generations can benefit from it as well not only this humans have left so many things
on the moon not only have we left a lot of space junk in earth's orbit but there are also objects
elsewhere too such as on the lunar surface some things were abandoned on the moon but others were
placed there as mementos or time capsules here's some fast facts about what's been left on the moon
three moon buggies from apollo 15 16 and 17 54 uncrewed probes that have crashed or landed on the
moon 190 000 kilograms of material left by humans on the moon that's insane and that's for today's
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