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Published online 17 February 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/457940a
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Kaputnik chaos could kill Hubble
Worst-ever orbital collision leads to calls for tighter regulation.
A cloud of debris spreading through low Earth orbit following the collision of two satellites poses a new risk to many scientific missions and may signal the demise of the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA is monitoring the increased threat carefully, and if it is as bad as some fear, the agency may have to cancel the proposed shuttle-servicing mission slated for later this year.
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We all depend on satellites. The unregulated usage and dumping of junk in space is a clear example of the tragedy of the commons. Unless the resource, near earth orbit, is regulated for the common good, the users will tend to take and use as much as possible: history has shown that, unreegulated, this process continues until the resource is destroyed. We can see similar process currently in progress in unregulated fishing grounds. Unless action is taken soon, we shall likely soon find our near earth orbits as polluted and unusable as many of our seas and rivers. It seems that rapid international consensus, preferably along the lines of " the polluter pays", are needed to attempt to keep this bit of space clean.
Are there any plans to launch a clean-up mission for this sector of space?
I do not see why it would be the Russians who are to blame for this and thus should be the subject of a lawsuit by Iridium. The Kosmos in question was a dead satellite, i.e. with no means to control it. The Iridium on the other hand was fully operational. Iridium had the opportunity to move it out of harms way, the Russians had not in case of their Kosmos. Not moving their Iridium was a decision by the Iridium operators themselves. They themselves are therefore responsible for the resulting collision.
In addition, regarding the topic of collisions and "LEO traffic regulation": there is a class of satellites for which no official orbital elements are available at all. These are the classified military objects of the USA and Japan. The only public orbital info available on these comes from amateur tracking of these spook satellites and their spent rocket boosters (of course, their operators have info as well, but they keep those under wraps). Regarding the issue of regulation of space traffic: how can you do that when some countries deny the existence of certain satellites (both operative and inoperative) and their spent inoperative launching vehicles?
. the new space debris just add MORE risks to an already TOO RISKY and USELESS repair mission, as explained in this article: http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/039hubbledeathtrap.html .
Hi Marco: Many experts say that the 1967 outer Space Treaty is too vague to really suggest that either Russia or Iridium is at fault. Article 7 of the treaty states that a state is liable for damaged caused from according to "whose territory or facility an object is launched." Under that wording, it could be argued that Russia was responsible for de-orbiting its defunct satellite, or at least warning Iridium that it was coming (Russia and the US both have military space tracking networks). But the plot thickens because Iridium-33 also happened to have been launched out of Russia. Some experts I spoke to suggested that might mean it was also considered a Russian spacecraft under the treaty, and that would mean Article 7 would not apply.