Over the icy tundra of Siberia in 2009, a derelict Russian military satellite, Kosmos-2251, slammed into an active communications satellite, Iridium 33, at speeds in excess of 26,000 miles per hour. Both were immediately smashed to smithereens.
As a result of this single collision, approximately 1,800 large pieces of space debris, each capable of destroying any spacecraft unfortunate enough to cross its path, remain in orbit to this day and for the foreseeable future.
Depending on who you ask, space debris is either a nonissue that will solve itself or a critical problem that threatens the future of space exploration. Far from homogenous, space debris includes any nonfunctional human-made object in space, including rocket parts that have been abandoned in orbit after having completed their mission, defunct satellites, fragments from unintentional and intentional orbital collisions and items released during operations. These sources have multiplied to create a large amount of space debris orbiting Earth.
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/Service Ventures Team
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