Space junk: Chinese rocket breakup increases debris dangers for astronauts and spacecraft
Like a scene from a science fiction movie, the upper stage of China's Long March 6A rocket broke apart in orbit last week and generated a dangerous debris cloud of 500 to 700 or more fragments — which are now zooming around Earth far faster than rifle bullets.
Though space is vast and odds of a collision are tiny, the Aug. 6 space junk mishap is likely on the radar screen of SpaceX's upcoming Polaris Dawn mission. A Falcon 9 rocket will launch four private astronauts from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station no earlier than Aug. 26, and they hope to exit their Dragon spacecraft and perform the world's first commercial spacewalk.
NASA considers orbital debris the No. 1 hazardous threat to astronauts, spacecraft and satellites. The agency reports a paint fleck measuring a mere 1 centimeter across that's traveling at hypervelocity (22,000 mph) can cause the same damage as a 550-pound object traveling 60 mph on Earth. And a 10-cm projectile strike at orbital speed is comparable to an explosion of 7 kilograms of TNT.
Early observations show the bulk of the Chinese rocket debris cloud is centered about 810 km above the Earth's surface, extending outward more than 300 km higher and lower, LeoLabs Senior Technical Fellow Darren McKnight said. Particle sizes range from 10 cm to big chunks meters in diameter. The Polaris Dawn spacewalk will occur about 700 km up, per the mission website.
"Well this is unfortunate. If we are going to venture out and explore the stars it would be better if we didn't have a gauntlet of landmines to navigate along the way," Polaris Dawn commander Jared Isaacman, who is funding the mission, said in an Aug. 8 tweet about the Chinese rocket breakup.
"It is really the debris that isn't trackable that is scary. Even millimeter sized objects at 8km/s can penetrate a spaceship or spacesuit," Isaacman said in the tweet.
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Mapping more than 22,000 space objects to minimize risk
LeoLabs analyzes millions of measurements per day and maintains a "living map" tracking more than 22,000 Earth-orbiting objects measuring 10 cm and larger. However, McKnight said there are probably 10 times more untrackable, potentially lethal objects measuring about 1 cm that are also floating about.
NASA reports the International Space Station typically maneuvers away from objects if odds of a collision exceed 1 in 10,000. These events occur about once a year.
In the aftermath of the Chinese rocket breakup, McKnight estimated the Polaris Dawn mission's accepted risk of a space debris collision may increase up to 5%. That estimate would have risen closer to 10% near the debris cloud's 810-km "hotspot."
"It's not going to be double. It's not going to be 10 times more," McKnight said of the space debris risk.
"Now, did that worry you? I imagine they didn't have an error analysis that 10% more was going to put them into an, 'I can't do this mission,' right? I'm sure that, operationally, they're in great shape," he said.
"What most people worry about are the longer-term, bigger objects that are up there for many years — and our spacewalk is a very short period of time, right? So from a point of view of risk, your risk goes way down because your exposure is way down," he said.
"Polaris Dawn does not need to run and hide. But the accumulation of these sorts of events makes it worse in the longer term," he said.
Messages were left this week with a Polaris Dawn spokesperson seeking comment on the Chinese rocket breakup.
Florida Tech researching space junk technology
In November 2022, another Chinese Long March 6A rocket body exploded in the most densely populated region in low-Earth orbit: 800 km to 900 km above the surface, LeoLabs reported. That blast created more than 750 fragments.
Then in June, Russia's decommissioned RESURS-P1 satellite broke apart and created more than 100 pieces of trackable debris — forcing NASA astronauts at the International Space Station to shelter inside their respective spacecraft for about an hour.
Madhur Tiwari is director of The Autonomy Lab at the Florida Institute of Technology. Two years ago, Tiwari directed a $250,000 Space Force contract to support Orbital Prime, a space debris cleanup project. The laboratory, which is staffed by about 18 students, worked on algorithms designed to let spacecraft someday navigate safely away from space junk without human intervention. This technology could also see use for functions such as automated repairs and docking.
Then last year, the Florida Tech lab received a $150,000 federal grant to continue this research by using machine learning to create 3D models of space debris. These algorithms are intended to someday detect, track, identify and characterize objects using camera-equipped spacecraft — and Tiwari said he looks forward to the grant's $1.5 million second phase.
Around the world, scientists are studying "active debris removal plans" such as evaporating small objects using radiation, moving objects using propulsion, and decelerating debris in near-Earth orbit using lasers, Florida Tech reported.
"You know, it's a cool thing for us engineers to be able to remove stuff from space — but I don't think that is the actual solution to this. You can't remove millions of debris pieces. That's not going to happen," Tiwari said.
"It's not that urgent today. It may become that urgent tomorrow, and regulation may be the key to this. And there are more and more companies popping up, small startups popping up, that are trying to remove this debris — but that is very expensive," he said.
Tiwari labeled space junk "a significant problem for the future — because we may not be able to travel outside our own planet if we keep up with this type of stuff."
Experts: More space junk mitigation is needed
Marlon Sorge is director of the Aerospace Corp.'s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies. He said the Chinese rocket debris cloud is located in a higher orbit than the ISS or internet satellite constellations such as Starlink, OneWeb and Amazon's future Kuiper Project.
Sorge, McKnight and Tiwari said space debris mitigation regulation is necessary to try to prevent events like the recent Chinese rocket breakups.
"The large constellation operators have been very conscientious about it. The Space Force has put in a special effort to make sure that what they're doing is above and beyond what's required. But the problem is, if everybody isn't doing it, even one significant bad actor can mess things up for everybody," Sorge said.
"So, it's critical that we get everybody to do what they need to do for debris mitigation, so that we don't end up with a significant problem that's going to interfere with us being able to take advantage of all the amazing things that space can bring us," he said.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at [email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Space junk hazard: Chinese Long March 6A rocket breakup adds new risks
