When China sent a missile into space last January and blasted off an old satellite it was a demonstration of its capability to attack and destroy a target in the space. But, it has also added a new dimension to the management of space around the earth, as now there is the dangerous possibility of smashing an orbiting target at will and leave thousands of pieces of debris flying around earth for ever.
Nicholas I. Johnson, the chief scientist for orbital debris at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston says ‘The breakup of Fengyun-1C, the Chinese satellite, is by far the most severe satellite breakup ever in terms of identified debris.’
Earth is already surrounded by hundreds of thousands of nuts, bolts, gloves and other such debris thrown out into space by manned and unmanned space missions. This orbiting garbage dump around Earth presents a hazard to man-made satellites and spacecraft.
The ESA Meteoroid and Space Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference has listed more than 600,000 objects larger than 1 cm in orbit.
According to estimates by NASA the Chinese satellite blast has left about 35,000 junk pieces larger than one centimeter in size. The number of flying objects and particles may reach 2 million, if tiny pieces are included.
The debris in space travel at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour, ten times faster than a bullet from a rifle. A space junk of about a millimeter size can rip through a multi-million dollar satellite and leave it as a vast stretch of junk pieces. The pieces that now litter space can hit any satellite, spacecraft or even the international space station in orbit. There is no way to prevent a collision.
Senior U.S. military officers are irritated by what they say a reckless creation of a 2,000-mile-long cloud of space debris by the Chinese test.
NASA is monitoring tens of thousands of space junks to safe guard satellites and spacecraft from being hit. The monitoring also helps avoid mistaking a falling space junk to be an enemy missile thus triggering a catastrophic counter attack.
While China has defended its ant-satellite missile test, it has made no efforts to address the issue of debris. China has only said ‘It did not pose a threat to anyone, nor did it violate the relevant international treaties.’ In fact, China is not alone in conducting an anti-satellite test. Both the United States of America and the former Soviet Union have conducted anti-satellite tests during the cold-war era.
Nations that have several communications, weather and military satellites in orbit are rightly worried. China is among the nations that have satellites in orbit. It has also sent manned space flights into orbit since 2003. It is high time the countries concerned came up with a plan to clean up the space around earth and make it safe for peaceful programs in future.
