Presentation on Space pollution, the genesis of space debris, history, future implications, recent events, growing concern and threats. It will be helpful for the students of science streams, disaster management courses. Contact sujaypaulfb@gmail.com to get full access and copy of the file.

1. Stuffin.space
Sujay Kumar Paul
M.Sc. (Agriculture) Agronomy
Semester III, 2nd Year
Palli Siksha Bhavana
Visva Bharati, Sriniketan
SPACE POLLUTION
Humanity’s Next Big Challenge

2. Space
In simpler way, when we
look into the blackness of
the night sky, we are
peering into space into the
depths of universe where
the stars, planets, galaxies
stretch
One of the few fundamental
quantities in physics

3. Space Pollution ???
How ??? Space and Universe are infinite !!!
Actually NO !!!
Orbital Space is FINITE
And the space we use regularly is even more limited
Universally mostly used for satellites and human spaceflights is
Low Earth Orbits (LEO)- 160 km to 2000 km
International Space Station – 300 km to 400 km

4. Pollution caused by humans in other planets is still not a matter of concern…..
But…
Space debris/ Space junk is really an alarming issue for our near
future
Earlier No. 1 priority was to put up satellites there preferably before others
Even now, it is seen as a National Prestige to put up satellites
Space is not owned by anyone there are No Territorial Rights there
Human filled outer space with trash, as is done to our Mother Earth.

6. FACT SHEETS
According to United States Strategic Command
 17,852 artificial objects in orbit including 1419 operational satellites
(Trackable) Size > 10 cm
 More than 175 million debris <1 cm to 10 cm
 Only 1 in 10 tracked object is actually working spacecraft
 2/3rd of space junk is in LEO

7. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
DEAD SPACECRAFTS
 60 years after successful launch of
Sputnik 1 in 1957, about 5000 satellites
launched successfully. Only 1300 of
them are in operation. Others just add
up to the trash there.
 Non functional satellites remain in orbit
for hundreds of years before they fall
and burn up Vanguard 1 (1958) will remain another 240 years

8. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
WEAPONS & RESEARCH
May, 1963: Project
Westford - 20 kg of Cu wire
into space for making a ring
of wires to facilitate long
distant communication.
Most of them fell back but
many welded to be a form of
space junk

9. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
WEAPONS & RESEARCH

10. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
WEAPONS & RESEARCH
1985 : USA shot down a non functional satellite with an aircraft
launched missile
2007 : China destroyed weather satellite in 850-882 km orbit, with
rocket to test space weapon.
Feb, 2008: USA launched a rocket to destroy a defective U.S spy satellite
These all created thousands of debris of sizes ranging from <1 cm to >10 cm
orbiting space till now….

11. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
LOST EQUIPMENTS
 Gloves lost by astronaut Ed White
 Thermal blankets
 Garbage bags
 Camera lost by Sunita Williams
 Tools and tool bags
Drifting thermal blanket

12. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
BOOSTERS
Spent upper stage of a Delta II rocket
Rocket upper stages
with/without unburned
fuels, dust from solid
rocket motors, surface
erosion debris like paint
flakes, screws and frozen
coolant from nuclear
powered satellites.

13. This can’t be harmful in any way……
Paint flakes, screws, garbage bags !!!!!
Let us take an example of a screw.

15. So, objects with really small mass can create
havoc in space
Impact of ½ inch paint flakes in
glass panes of ISS

16. Possible Threats
To Earth:
 70% of Earth is water
 Most debris burns up in the atmosphere, larger
objects can reach the ground.
 Defunt spacecrafts which are still in control are
routinely deposited in a Spacecraft cemetery in
South Pacific Ocean

17. Possible Threats
To Earth:
 1969: Five sailors on a Japanese ship were injured by
space debris
 1979: Skylab disintegrated but reached surface
 2001: Rocket upper stage from a satellite
launched in 1993 crashed in Saudi
Arabian desert (In Picture)
 2003: Columbia carrying six astronauts
disintegrated but reached surface in
83,000 pieces
 2007: A pilot of Airbus A340 carrying 270
passengers over Pacific Ocean saw
debris fly past
 2018: Chinese non-funtional space station,
Tiangong 1 posed risk when it came down.

18. Possible Threats
To Spacecrafts:
 Space junk is a threat to active satellites and spaceships.
 Several incidences of junks crashing with operational space shuttles, thermal
protection system tiles and satellites were recorded. Incidents became already
common by the 1990s. Study concluded that debris accounted for half of the overall
risk to the Shuttle
Bullet like hole on radiator of
Space shuttle Endeavour
Space Station Mir’s solar panels are
damaged by junks

19. Possible Threats
To Spacecrafts:
As of December 2016, five satellite collisions are confirmed.
The first major satellite collision occurred on 10 February 2009. The
deactivated Russian military satellite Kosmos 2251 and the operational
communication satellite Iridium 33 collided 800 km over northern
Siberia.

20. Possible Threats

21. Possible Threats
To Spacecrafts:

22. Kessler syndrome
 The Kessler proposed by the
NASA scientist Donald J.
Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in
which the density of objects in
low earth orbit is high enough that
collisions between objects could
cause a cascade where each
collision generates space debris
thus creating a chain of collision
and explosions.
 The 2013 film Gravity features a
Kessler syndrome catastrophe as
the event.
D. J. Kessler

24. Kessler syndrome
Imagine a situation like that ….what would be our condition in our day to day
life on Earth without..
 Telecommunication
 Weather Forecasting
 Navigation: Trains, Planes, GPS
 Global Banking System
 Military reconnaissance
 Earth observation
 Orbital Telescopes
 Remote sensing
All our advancements will vanish in just a matter of seconds

25. MANAGEMENT:
Space debris can create menace as
plastics are causing these days.
All the physical and other
conventional measures of
collecting and disposing off debris
are not going to act in space. As
the total space launches go on
increasing per year, the situation
will only grow worse.
1) SELF REMOVAL: The most easy way out is to decommission the satellites
well before we loose control and bring them to a very
low orbit so that they burn out during descent due to
friction with the atmosphere.
@ESA

26. MANAGEMENT:
2) ACTIVE REMOVAL: There are UN guidelines but are rarely followed. Even
if do not put any new satellites, space junk will
exponentially multiply. In order to allow space flight
without restriction in future 5 to 10 objects need to be
removed actively to stabilize space junk. Moreover,
jurisdiction plays another role as one has to get
permission to interact with a piece of space junk from
other institute.
i) Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) in 2017 has tried a Integrated
Tether Experiment to pass current into
defunct satellites to reduce their speed so
that they burn up in atmosphere.

27. MANAGEMENT:
ii) European Space Agency (ESA) is presently working on E.Deorbit
programme which will use harpoon / net / robotic arm to capture junk
and bring it to lower atmosphere, where it will burn up. However, the
success of a mission will depend on the size, rotation rate and structure of a
junk. E.Deorbit’s flight is scheduled for 2023.
Robotic Arm Concept
Net to capture junk

28. MANAGEMENT:
iii) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of
USA and Roscosmos of Russia also thinks of developing lasers to
burn up junk in space. But, weaponizing space is not acceptable.
iv) Japanese private sector startup, Astroscale is designing a debris-
removal satellite.
Laser Gun

29. MANAGEMENT:
V) Self-Destructing Satellites: Swiss
researchers have devised a small satellite,
called CleanSpace One, which could find and
then grab onto space junk with jellyfish-like
tentacles. Both the satellite and the space debris
would be destroyed during the heat and friction
of re-entry.
VI) Space Pods: Russia's space corporation, Energia, is planning to build a
space pod to knock junk out of orbit. It will be nuclear powered and can service
for 15 years.
VII) Sticky Booms: Altius Space Machines is currently developing a robotic
arm system it calls a "sticky boom", which can extend up to 100 meters, and
uses electroadhesion to bring down defunct satellites.

30. SOURCES OF SPACE JUNK
No matter which technology proves
itself, space junk isn’t going away.
Even if launches ceased tomorrow,
the problem could persist for a
couple of centuries and even get
worse. Space junk has reached a
tipping point, and if curative and
preventive measures are not taken
on from now, the ambitious projects
of Space Tourism will remain a
dream of future.
For long we treated space as oceans…truly big……what if we dump there!!!
But, its time for some Space Environmentalism
PROTOTYPE OF A SPACE HOTEL
CONCLUSION

31. References:
1)Space Debris, Wikipedia.
2) Stuffin.space
3) How can humans clean the space junk ?Litter, Litter Everywhere by Jesse Emspak,
https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/30/14116918/space-junk-debris
4) Space junk: What is it, how much is out there, and what should we do with it? By Tom
Fedorowytsch, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-22/the-challenges-of-tracking-sp
5) 9 concepts for cleaning up space junk, Tree Hunger
6) Attack of the Cosmic Space Junk! , Youtube

32. Thank you