More than half of the thousands of satellites in orbit are now defunct, and this accumulation of floating space debris has been described as a “fatal problem” for current and future space missions and human space travel.
An estimated 130 million objects smaller than 1cm and 34,000 larger than 10cm are traveling in orbit at speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). A report presented at this year’s European conference on space debris suggests the amount of space junk could increase fifty-fold by 2100.
While many fragments of space junk are small, they travel so fast their impact has enough energy to disable a satellite or cause significant damage to space stations.
Both the Hubble Telescope and the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellites had coin-sized holes punched into them by flying debris and a mirror on Nasa’s James Webb space telescope was damaged by micrometeoroids.
Most satellites were not designed with the end of their usefulness in mind. About 60% of the 6,000 satellites in orbit are now out of order.
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