There is a lot of stuff being launched into space these days. Space junk, also known as orbital debris, is becoming an increasingly concerning issue for space agencies, the scientific community, and all of the people on earth. Lopez is president of the US branch of Astroscale, a Japanese company competing for market share in the emerging field of orbital debris removal. In an interview with CNN, he said
“Ten years ago, people thought that our founder was crazy for even talking about space debris,” “Now you can’t go to a space conference without a panel or a series of talks on space sustainability and the debris issue.”
It is time we started paying more attention to space debris issues and what is at stake for the world. To put it in perspective, here is the 2024 summary of space launches.
This means that in 2024, a space launch occurred on average every 1.4 days.
With the rapid expansion of satellite technology and the increase in space missions, debris orbiting Earth has reached critical levels. This raises three major concerns in my mind.
- The first is about “space” as a final wilderness with intrinsic value, and space “pollution” issues. We have faced the wilderness issue on earth before. Now it’s about outer space ownership.
- The second is about this Low-Earth Orbit “pollution” and chunks of man-made space junk crashing into Earth.
- The third is about military use and/or abuse of outer space.
On Issue 1: Intrinsic Value of Space.
As of September 2024, over 7,000 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit communicate with designated ground transceivers. Nearly 12,000 satellites will be deployed, possibly extending to 34,400 shortly.
According to the tracking site Orbiting Now, more than 8,300 satellites are currently overhead, and predictions of how many will soon join them vary widely.
More than 300 commercial and government entities have announced plans to launch 478,000 satellites by 2030, likely to be inflated by hype. The US Government Accountability Office predicted that 58,000 satellites would be launched in the next six years. Other analysts recently estimated that the number likely to reach orbit is closer to 20,000.
These satellites are bright enough to produce trails in images taken with telescopes. The trails overwrite the stars and galaxies behind them, which can only be remedied by taking additional images. Short transient phenomena, such as a brief flash from a gamma-ray burst, could be missed.
Starlink is the largest satellite constellation in service, with thousands of satellites in orbit. Many more are planned. Starlink, developed by SpaceX, aims to provide global high-speed internet coverage.
A satellite constellation is a group of satellites working together as a system, typically positioned in specific orbits to cover particular areas of the Earth. These constellations can provide continuous global or regional coverage for various applications such as communication, navigation, and Earth observation. For example, GPS is a well-known global positioning and navigation satellite constellation.
Blue Origin is a private aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company founded by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, in 2000. The focuses on developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal of dramatically lowering costs and increasing reliability.
Blue Origin has developed several key projects:
-
- New Shepard: A suborbital rocket designed to take tourists and payloads to the edge of space.
- New Glenn: A heavy-lift orbital rocket designed to carry larger payloads to orbit.
- Blue Moon: A lunar lander intended for NASA’s Artemis program.
- Orbital Reef: A planned space station in partnership with other organizations.
Amazon’s Blue Origin plans to launch more than 3,200 Project Kuiper satellites, and AST Space Mobile plans to launch 100 Blue Bird satellites (and perhaps more). The recently launched Blue Bird prototype, Blue Walker 3, has produced genuine alarm among astronomers.
While Blue Walker 3 was initially quite faint, it unfolded a 64-square-meter communications array, roughly the size of a squash court. This vast surface is very good at reflecting sunlight, and Blue Walker 3 is now as bright as some of the brightest stars in the night sky. It is possible that the operational Blue Bird satellites could become even bigger and more colorful.
At its brightest, Blue Walker 3 is more colorful than all but a few stars in the night sky. Large numbers of satellites this bright could be a problem — a big problem.
If thousands of satellites were this bright, sometimes you would be unable to look at the night sky without seeing these bright satellites. We would lose that sense of wilderness, with an almost constant reminder of technology in our sky. This would also have a massive impact on professional astronomy.
Brighter satellites do more damage to astronomical images than faint satellites. Furthermore, many of these satellites broadcast at radio frequencies that could interfere with radio astronomy, transmitting radio waves above remote sites where radio observatories scan the cosmos.
Under dark skies, we can see the Milky Way, as people have seen it for millennia. What happens next is uncertain.
The International Astronomical Union has communicated its alarm about satellite constellations, and Blue Walker 3 in particular. The approval of satellite constellations by the US Federal Communications Commission has had relatively little consideration of environmental impacts. This has recently been flagged as a significant problem by the US Government Accountability Office, but whether this leads to concrete change is unclear.
Humanity has historically done a good job polluting the land, water, and atmosphere. Now, we are rapidly polluting Low-Earth Orbit outer space. Will we allow the night sky to be cluttered with bright artificial satellites all for the sake of faster internet or 5G cell phone service? Or will we learn from our history and pull back to preserve the night sky as a globally shared wilderness with intrinsic value? When does it become too much?
On Issue 2: Space Junk
On December 30, 2024, a massive metallic ring weighing approximately 1,100 pounds came crashing into a village in Kenya. The impact startled residents, some of whom initially feared it was an attack or a bomb explosion.
A local villager, Joseph Mutua, recounted the event to Kenyan news station NTV. While tending to his cows, he heard “a loud bang” and assumed it might be a car accident. However, there were no signs of a collision nearby. The source of the disturbance turned out to be space debris – a separation ring from a rocket launch. There are many examples.
Tracking data from Space-Track.org, maintained by the US Space Force, tracks the debris currently orbiting the Earth and identifies the most significant contributors to this celestial clutter.
According to the data, as of May 2023, 2024, roughly 14,000 small, medium, and large debris objects were floating about in low Earth orbit. This does not count the millions of tiny debris fragments that are too small to be tracked.
Although space debris is a global problem, certain countries have played a more significant role in contributing to the clutter. In the 1950s, the US and Russia (formerly USSR) led the space race with the most launched space objects. In the 1970s, they were joined by China, and objects from all three countries account for the vast majority of today’s space debris. No surprise there.
Russia’s debris count, including former launches by the Soviet Union, stood at 4,521. However, the US and China are not far behind, with more than 4,000 each. Other contributors include China / Brazil, The European Space Agency, France Inda, and Japan (there are others as well). Though many of these are accumulated over time, thousands of debris items are created in single catastrophic moments.
For example, China’s anti-satellite test in 2007 destroyed its own weather satellite, creating 3,500 pieces of space debris. Likewise, the 2009 collision between the inactive Russian satellite Cosmos-2251 and the operational US communications satellite Iridium 33 created over 2,000 pieces of debris.
Even the smallest debris fragments can cause catastrophic collisions when moving at high speeds. Space junk in low Earth orbit travels at mind-boggling speeds. Generally, it zips around the Earth at about 17,500 miles per hour—approximately 10 times faster than a speeding bullet. These high velocities make space debris a serious hazard to satellites, spacecraft, and the International Space Station. That is just the junk and not the non-junk. With companies like SpaceX launching expansive satellite networks, all these numbers are growing fast.
In the past few years, the pace of satellite launches has accelerated. SpaceX has made satellite launches cheaper, and it has been launching thousands of Starlink satellites that provide internet services. As of June 2024, approximately 11,780 satellites are orbiting our planet, according to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Most of them are functioning and in low-Earth orbit.
As the number of satellites and spacecraft in orbit grows, the risk of collisions with debris increases significantly.
Mitigating the proliferation of space junk presents a significant challenge for the scientific community. Current efforts to address this issue include implementing guidelines for spacecraft disposal, such as safely deorbiting defunct satellites at the end of their operational life. However, these guidelines are not mandatory and are often not followed by commercial operators, leading to the continued accumulation of debris in orbit. In addition, the complexity of tracking and cataloging thousands of objects in space makes it difficult, if not impossible, to accurately predict and mitigate the risk of collisions.
And then there is space tourism. The budding space tourism industry stands on the threshold of unprecedented expansions. While space tourism may seem like a recent development, it has a history dating back decades.
The first milestone in the history of space tourism came in 2001 when American businessman Dennis Tito became the first paying space tourist. Tito traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, spending nearly a week in orbit. His historic flight paved the way for a new era of commercial space, with several other private individuals following in his footsteps in the years that followed.
In 2004, the world saw the launch of SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded spacecraft to reach the edge of space. SpaceShipOne was developed by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and was financed by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson. SpaceShipOne achieved several successful suborbital flights, demonstrating the viability of private space travel. This groundbreaking achievement led to the founding of Virgin Galactic, Branson’s commercial spaceflight company, which aims to offer suborbital spaceflights to paying customers.
2024 marked space tourism benchmarks that will redefine the essence of human recreational travel and exploration. Several high-profile missions were launched in 2024, promising to enhance the credibility and allure of space tourism. Companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are racing to refine their future offerings, aiming to provide unforgettable experiences beyond the Kármán line (the human defined edge of space). The flight options are expected to range from suborbital flights, offering brief moments of weightlessness and panoramic views of Earth’s curvature, to more exotic orbital expeditions that promise extended stays in space for the ultimate adventure enthusiasts.
The issue of space junk becomes even more critical when we start launching even more civilians into space. There are already prototypes of flying cars intended for civilian use. It is not much of a stretch to imagine flying cars capable of low earth orbit space flight.
Think about it.
- The first practical, marketable automobile was developed by Carl Benz in 1886
- Only 35 years later, the first recorded traffic jam occurred on November 11, 1921, in Washington, D.C
- Only 36 years after that, the first successful space launch was conducted by the Soviet Union in 1957
- And only 12 years after that, the first human moon landing and walking occurred in 1969.
That is a total of only 83 years from the first commercially available automobile to walking on the moon. That is within the high-end range of a human’s life expectancy (depending on a variety of variables of course). In addition, consider that the first hand-held calculator was invented in 1971, after the moon walk.
Information technology and the computing tools available today are unprecedented. Things happen today much faster than ever before.
On Issue 3: Military Use of Space
Let’s examine what the United States Space Force has been up to.
The Eastern Range, managed by Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD 45), has cemented its status as the world’s busiest spaceport in 2024. Based at Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the team successfully facilitated 93 launches, delivering 1,389 orbital assets into space.
This accomplishment marked the second consecutive year the US broke the world record for annual space launches, surpassing the 2023 record of 108 launches. The previous record, held by the Soviet Union since 1982. This quantifies the growing pace of global space operations.
Brigadier General Kristin Panzenhagen, director of the Eastern Range, commended the collaboration between SLD 45 and commercial launch providers. She highlighted the team’s commitment to securing reliable space access for national defense, international partners, and commercial ventures.
Among the year’s highlights was the historic Crew-9 mission on September 28, 2024, which launched Col. Nick Hague as the first United States Space Force Guardian into space. Accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, Hague’s mission expanded to support the safe return of astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station (ISS).
SLD 45 also ensured the success of four National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions, which bolstered US defense capabilities. These launches included payloads critical to missile detection, intelligence gathering, and global vigilance. One standout mission, the Rapid Response Trailblazer, on December 16, 2024, demonstrated the ability to adapt swiftly to warfighter needs, deploying a GPS III Space Vehicle (SV-07) in record time.
The Eastern Range is preparing for even greater activity in 2025 as operations ramp up. Panzenhagen projected an increased launch cadence, establishing the US’s role as the “world’s premier gateway to space.” Space Force is clearly on the march. You can count on our geopolitical adversaries to follow suit. Such is the world in which we live today.
The future of humanity in space is very exciting however, my great fear is that it may be moving at a pace that is spinning out of control. I for one, look up at the night sky much differently now than I did as a child.
Sources:
- Zo Ahmed January 4, 2025. Massive space debris crashes into Kenya, residents alarmed as 1,100-pound ring crashes from sky.
- February 21, 2024. Bill Weir CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Nearly 30,000 objects are hurtling through near-Earth orbit. That’s not just a problem for space.
- University of Montana. McGovern, Patrick Joseph, “Paradigms and the politics of wilderness preservation” (1993). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 5583. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5583
- com. Michael J. I. Brown, Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University\. Blue Walker 3, an enormous and bright communications satellite, is genuinely alarming astronomers. January 8, 2023. This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
- Liou, J.-C. (2009). Handbook of Space Engineering, Archaeology, and Heritage. CRC Press.
- Matney, M., & Sholtis, J. A. (2012). Orbital debris mitigation strategies. Advances in Space Research, 49(11), 1423-1428.
- Johnson, N. L., & Liou, J.-C. (2017). Preventing Collisions of Spacecraft with Space Debris: Issue Detection and Tracking, State Estimation, and Orbit Control. Acta Astronautica, 133, 407-416.
- Defense Industry Europe. January 1, 2025. U.S. Space Force’s Eastern Range breaks records with 93 space launches in 2024.
- Zellner, M. (2018). The History of Space Tourism. Springer.
- Hall, R. (2016). Space Tourism: An Overview. Aerospace Research Society.
- Pelt, M. (2014). Commercial Space Tourism: A Brief History. Journal of Space Exploration, 10(2), 45-58.