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International Space Station forced to maneuver out of way of approaching space debris An incoming piece of space junk recently prompted the International Space Station to take action to maneuver itself out of harm's way. A Russian cargo ship docked at the space station fired its thrusters for more than five minutes Tuesday to "provide an extra margin of distance" for the hunk of debris, NASA said. While the inbound object, which was debris from a defunct meteorological satellite, was not necessarily on a collision course with the station, NASA said the evasive maneuver provided a little more cushion for it to safely whizz by. Space junk composed primarily of retired satellites and other human-made objects, like used rocket boosters, are a growing problem littering Earth's orbit. Left unchecked, the junkyard of orbital debris can pose dangers to both crewed and uncrewed space missions, as well as astronauts on the space station. When the approaching debris was detected, NASA worked with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to conduct the avoidance maneuver. The Progress 89 spacecraft, which reached the station in August on an autonomous resupply mission, fired its thrusters around 3 p.m. EST Tuesday for 5 minutes, 31 seconds, to raise the orbit of the space station. The threatening object was determined to be a piece of orbital debris from a defunct defense meteorological satellite that broke up in 2015, NASA said. Without the maneuver, ballistics officials estimated that the fragment could have come within around 2.5 miles of the station, according to NASA. The maneuver did not disrupt regular station operations and will not delay Thursday’s scheduled launch of the Russian Progress 90 cargo craft from Kazakhstan. The uncrewed spacecraft is set to deliver nearly 3 tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the crew when it reaches the space station Saturday morning. Space station regularly avoids space junk Such maneuvers have become a increasingly necessary for the space station to perform amid a growing field of space debris cluttering what's known as low-Earth orbit. NASA estimates 17.6 million pounds − or 8,800 tons − worth of objects are in Earth orbit. Up until December 2022, the International Space Station had moved out of the way of space junk 32 times since 1999, according to a quarterly report from NASA. By the time the October report was released in 2023, that figure had jumped to 37 orbital debris avoidance maneuvers. Space junk can even cause problems for people here on Earth if it doesn't burn up when it reenters the atmosphere. Earlier this year, a family in Naples, Florida, filed a claim against NASA for more than $80,000 in damages to their home after a chunk of space debris from the International Space Station tore through their roof. Space agencies around the world have in previous years begun to take action to reduce and limit the amount of junk permitted to float around in orbit.

[Chinese Rocket Breaks Apart After Megaconstellation Launch, Creating Cloud Of Space Junk] The first launch for a coming Chinese internet megaconstellation turned out to be quite messy. On Tuesday morning (Aug. 6), a Chinese Long March 6A rocket launched the first 18 satellites for the Qianfan ("Thousand Sails") broadband network, which will eventually host up to 14,000 spacecraft. The rocket successfully delivered the satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), at an altitude of about 500 miles (800 kilometers). But its upper stage broke apart shortly thereafter, generating a cloud of debris that's now racing around our planet, according to United States Space Command (USSPACECOM). "USSPACECOM can confirm the breakup of a Long March 6A rocket launched on Aug. 6, 2024, resulting in over 300 pieces of trackable debris in low Earth orbit," the organization said in a statement today (Aug. 8). "USSPACECOM has observed no immediate threats and continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain." "Trackable debris" is generally any object that's at least 4 inches (10 centimeters) in diameter. The newly spawned debris cloud doubtless also contains many shards that are too small to monitor. This was a worrisome start for the Thousand Sails constellation, according to Slingshot Aerospace, a California-based company dedicated to advancing space domain awareness and sustainability. This isn't the first time a Long March 6A upper stage — which weighs about 12,800 pounds (5,800 kilograms) without propellant — has spawned a debris cloud in orbit, as Slingshot noted. One of the rocket bodies broke apart on Nov. 12, 2022, shortly after deploying the Yunhai-3 weather satellite, according to NASA debris experts. That event created 533 pieces of trackable debris by January 2023, according to the March 2023 issue of NASA's "Orbital Debris Quarterly News." Earth orbit is getting more and more crowded, with both active satellites and pieces of debris. According to the European Space Agency, there are about 10,000 operational spacecraft zooming around our planet at the moment (most of them SpaceX Starlink internet satellites), roughly 40,500 pieces of debris at least 4 inches (10 cm) wide and 130 million shards at least 1 millimeter in diameter. Source: https://lnkd.in/eK94ssR9 #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #SpaceNews

There is a large accumulation of space debris around Earth particularly in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) where most space operations take place. The excessive accumulation of space debris is also attributed to the increased launch cadence of small spacecraft and the recent surge in constellations in the past decade. Improved aerospace technology to access to space has made LEO affordable for more countries, organizations, and institutions. Whereas launching small spacecraft missions also adds to the associated space debris risks and threats. Estimates of the accumulation of orbital debris suggest approximately; - 100,000,000 objects with a diameter 1 – 10 cm, and - over 36,500 pieces with diameters >10 cm, They all are in orbit between Geostationary (GEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) altitudes. The orbital lifetime of space debris can be extremely long since atmospheric drag is only meaningful at LEO <250 km. Satellites in Geostationary Orbit (GEO) circle Earth above the equator from west to east following Earth’s rotation – in about 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds – by travelling at the same rate as Earth. This makes GEO satellites appear to be “stationary” over a fixed position. In order to perfectly match Earth’s rotation, the speed of GEO satellites should be about 3 km per second (5832 knots) at an altitude of 35786 km.

Last week we learned that part of a cargo pallet of depleted batteries that was jettisoned from the ISS in 2021 not only did not fully burn up on reentry, but also crashed through the roof and two stories of a private civilian’s home in Florida. (Read the Ars Technica article here: https://lnkd.in/gvurmhEX) This pallet was never supposed to be jettisoned from the ISS as trash, but a launch failure in 2018 meant a delay in work on the ISS and then in 2020 the only vehicle able to carry this pallet safely back to Earth was retired. While this may seem like just a bizarre once in a lifetime series of events, it is a great reminder that the decisions we make now in space may have incredibly unpredictable and negative impacts years from now. For example, we don’t know what the stratospheric and environmental impacts will be of our continually growing use of reentry to remove satellites from orbit. We don’t know the true carrying capacity of our orbits or when we might trigger the Kessler Syndrome. We don’t really know how to remove debris from space or how to successfully shield our space assets from small scale space debris impacts. But what we do know is we do not want to make it impossible for future generations to access space from Earth and that increased debris in our orbits makes “local” space more dangerous for orbital space stations. We also know that the more we launch into orbit, the more chances there are for debris to return to Earth and the more likely it is that we will eventually have a fatal debris occurrence. Unfortunately, like most commons, there is a perverse incentive for “individual [space] actors [to] transfer the costs of their actions to all those who currently, or may in the future, have access to [ . . .] those same “free” resources.” (See https://lnkd.in/gp3Yh9gG.) But because the cost of investing in space is so high and development projects are decades in the making, we are starting to see more state level legislation and private and public capital investments focused on achieving zero space debris, controlled deorbiting, and refueling and repairing assets in space. Is this too little too late? We may not know for years to come, moreover without international agreement on new “road” rules for space, we may never be able to truly manage this extraterrestrial commons. With all this in mind, if there was a regulation or investment you could bring into being to promote sustainability in space, what would it be?

If you are looking for consultations regarding space law or policy, we do that here at #AlysonClaireLaw!

Not-so-secret spaceplane to use "first-of-a-kind maneuver" to change orbit The US Space Force's secret-but-not-really-secret spaceplane will carry out a novel maneuver called aerobraking to change its orbit. Instead of using thrusters, the robotic spacecraft will dip into the Earth's atmosphere to change its trajectory. The Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7) mission of the Space Force's X-37B spaceplane that launched on December 28, 2023 from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A in Florida is as shrouded in semi-secrecy as previous missions. While the official story is that it is conducting experiments in radiation effects and Space Domain Awareness technologies while in a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), the details of what else it's doing up there are a matter of speculation. This makes OTV-7 largely the same as the previous six missions, but there will be at least one difference. Its current orbit sends it alternately very close to the Earth and then very far away. (Why? We have no idea.) However, the Space Force wants to alter the trajectory. (Why? We …) The clever bit is that the X-37B won't be doing so by a series of thruster burns, but by performing shallow dives into the Earth's atmosphere to slow it down and place it into a new orbit. It's a maneuver that's been well known for decades. Robert Heinlein even included it in one of his juvenile novels in the 1940s and it was a highlight of the 1984 film 2010: The Year We Make Contact when our heroes arrived at Jupiter. However, it's very rarely been used in reality and then only for planetary missions. It was used experimentally for Japan's first lunar probe in 1991, to extend the Magellan Venus mission in 1993, by the Mars Global Surveyor in 1997, the Venus Express in 2014, and the ESA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2017 and 2018. However, it's never been used for an Earth orbit mission before. Before the aerobraking maneuver, the X-37B will jettison its service module, which will reenter the Earth's atmosphere in accordance with international space debris minimization protocols. The spaceplane will then use the drag of Earth’s atmosphere to slow it down with a minimal expenditure of fuel, after which it will continue the last phase of its mission before returning to Earth. "This first-of-a-kind maneuver from the X-37B is an incredibly important milestone for the United States Space Force as we seek to expand our aptitude and ability to perform in this challenging domain," said Gen. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations.

SPACE JUNK! Did that get your attention? Perhaps not. We see somebody behind you didn't look. SPAAAAAACE JUUUUUUUNK! That's better. Two satellites nearly collided in Earth orbit last week, passing each other with only about 65 feet to spare. Why so close? Because one of them was SPAAACE JUUUNK! The very dead Russian Cosmos 2221 spacecraft and NASA's not dead but also not-maneuverable Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite managed to miss each other last Wednesday, thereby not adding to the growing problem of debris in space. Roughly 70% of the objects in low-Earth orbit are pieces of debris from damaged or defunct rockets, satellites, and nonoperational payloads, according to LeoLabs. And as more satellites get launched into orbit, the need to avoid space junk increases. Last March, the International Space Station had to dodge objects twice, once to avoid a collision with a satellite and again to maneuver around debris a few days later. One solution may be to send up more satellites to pick up the space garbage. Kind of like an old TV show we remember: https://lnkd.in/dxtspX5X Now more than ever, we need . . . Quark.

[China's Mysterious Space Plane Returns To Earth After 268 Days In Orbit] China's mysterious space plane has returned to Earth after spending over 8 months in orbit. The reusable spacecraft landed at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in a remote section of northwest China on Friday (Sept. 6). It launched from the same site atop a Long March 2F rocket on Dec. 14, 2023, on its third mission, and spent 268 days in orbit, according to Chinese state media outlet Xinhua. While the exact capabilities of the space plane remain largely unknown, Xinhua states the craft will "pave the way for more convenient and affordable round-trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future." It's unknown what exactly China's space plane was doing on this most recent mission — or on any other mission, for that matter. As with seen in previous missions, spacecraft trackers on the ground observed the space plane releasing a small object into orbit. "This object could be a subsatellite deployment, or it could be a piece of hardware ejected prior to end of mission and deorbit (the space plane's first flight did something similar)," said astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a post on X (formally Twitter). The space plane appeared to conduct what is known as rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) with the object, meaning it tested capabilities to meet up with and get close to the object in space, SpaceNews reported. These operations can be used to repair or perform upkeep on friendly satellites, and it is believed that military superpowers are refining these techniques to potentially tamper with adversary satellites during any future orbital combat. China's space plane launched on this recent mission just two days before the scheduled launch of the U.S. Space Force's own reusable orbital vehicle, the X-37B. That launch was scrubbed with about 30 minutes remaining in the countdown, and the X-37B would go on to launch two weeks later, on Dec. 28, 2023, on its seventh mission. Like with China's space plane, the capabilities and missions of the X-37B are largely classified; it is known to be an orbital test bed for new technologies, but that's about it. India is also developing its own reusable orbital space plane named Pushpak. Source: https://lnkd.in/esqyWewu #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #SpaceNews

They say in space, no one can hear you scream. But can they see you being sustainable? With over 1500 satellites launched every year, low Earth orbits (LEOs) are becoming increasingly crowded. Now add to this the problem of space debris. The European Space Agency (ESA) tracked 30,000 individual pieces of space debris measuring over ten centimetres with an additional one million objects over one centimetre in size blanketing the planet. Be it in space or in our seas and oceans, humanity just can't seem to avoid the problem of junk. Organisations are considering different ways to solve this problem, from giant electromagnetic nets to space and ground-based lasers. But much like with our oceans, the best solution might be to stop junk from going up there in the first place. Tim Flohrer of the European Space Agency - ESA and Emmanuelle David of eSpace - EPFL Space Center shared their fascinating insights for this article I wrote for Wärtsilä. #SpaceSustainabilityRating #SpaceSustainability #SpaceDebris

['Heavy' history: ULA Launches Final Delta Rocket After 64 Years] The last flight of a Delta rocket lifted off today from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, bringing to an end more than 60 years of service. The rocket evolved considerably over those decades and this version, Delta IV Heavy, for many years was the most powerful in the U.S. fleet. Carrying a national security payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, Delta IV Heavy ends its service with a near-perfect record. The United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is replacing its two venerable rockets, Delta and Atlas, with Vulcan, which has its first flight in January. Several more Atlases remain to be launched, but today at 12:53 pm ET was the bittersweet goodbye to Delta. This final Delta IV Heavy, or DIVH, launch carried NROL-70, a classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Of the 16 DIVH launches, 12 were for NRO. Another was for DOD and two were for NASA. All were completely successful. Only the first launch in December 2004 is rated as a partial failure because it reached a lower orbit than planned. It was carrying test satellites. Between the end of the space shuttle program in 2011 and the first flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy in 2018, DIVH was the most capable rocket in the U.S. fleet. It put the heaviest national security satellites into Earth orbit and for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, had enough energy to put it on course to fly closer to the surface of the Sun than any previous spacecraft. The launch was scheduled for March 28, but scrubbed 3 minutes and 58 seconds before liftoff because of a “liquid pump failure on the gaseous nitrogen pipeline which provides pneumatic pressure to the launch vehicle systems” according to ULA. Air Liquide operates the gaseous nitrogen, or GN2, pipeline for NASA, which feeds several launch pads at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the adjacent U.S. Space Force’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Delta IV launches from Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at CCSFS. Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, who oversees the launch site as commander of the Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 and Commander of the Eastern Range, told reporters before the launch that a SLC-37 Environmental Impact Statement process has begun at the Pentagon. No decisions on the future of the pad will be made until that is completed, she said, adding it usually takes two years. A number of CCSFS launch pads that fell into disuse over the decades have come back to life in recent years, leased to commercial companies building new vehicles. For Delta, though, this was the final chapter for a rocket whose first launch was in May 1960. ULA created a video tribute to its 64-year history. Source: https://lnkd.in/eT_6W3E3 #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #spacenews