A piece of debris just 10cm in diameter could cause an entire spacecraft to disintegrate and it is estimated that there are more than 29,000 objects larger than 10cm in Earth’s orbit. This poses a major risk to the spacecraft to-ing and fro-ing from the International Space Station, not to mention the hundreds of satellites that are now essential to daily lives.
Learn moreThe price tag for space debris clean up is staggering. Luckily, the nature of this problem has piqued the interest of a few private companies. Take the Aerospace Corporation and their Brane Craft for example. According to an article published by Extreme Tech in September of this year, the Brane Craft is essentially “A 2-dimensional design, with a total thickness of just 10 micrometers. With a total surface area of about a square yard, it would make a tempting target for tiny bits of space debris or micrometeorite. Something as small as 5 micrometers could blast through the main structural sheet if it were struck, so The Aerospace Corporation is working to make it as durable as possible.” It is probable that no one was thinking about the future debris repercussions caused by that October 4th, 1957 launch. Unfortunately, the world’s scientific community is not that lucky. We need them to once again push their limits of innovation and technical ability to the breaking point in an effort to clean up our space debris past before it diminishes our future.