Space debris are an ever present threat to satellites due to the mounting number of collisions, reports Vikas Kumar
Oh Little Sputnik, flying high With made-in-Moscow beep, You tell the world it’s a Commie sky, And Uncle Sam’s asleep
This was G Menon Williams, Governor of Michigan, at his humorous best. For, though the Sputnik that the former Soviet Union sent into space on October 4, 1957 weighed just 184.3 pounds, its political impact was huge. Some with keen memories had then picturesquely described it as the “bloodless Pearl Harbour.”
Well there’s been a lot of such bloodless events since
spaceship Sputnik. Space experts have been warning for years that the number of satellites in planet orbits has been increasing at a dangerously high speed. This poses a major threat to other satellites – and yet no one paid heed to them until February 10. That was the day that two communications satellites – one Russian and the other American – disintegrated, spewing tonnes of space debris in the higher and lower orbits.
Says space expert Brian Weeden: “Collisions generate debris, greatly increasing the possibility of more of them. These significantly add to the expense of operating in space – a highly expensive business in itself. For instance, if the satellites were to be designed in a way so that they could protect themselves, the cost would rise proportionately. Their life in the orbit too would decrease, because to avoid collisions they would be forced to manoeuvre more frequently. Manned missions, such as space stations, would need to go to great lengths to protect humans.” The Kessler syndrome (named after a highly regarded NASA space debris researcher) is all about this phenomenon. Kessler had found that collisions create a chain reaction of further collisions.
Oh Little Sputnik, flying high With made-in-Moscow beep, You tell the world it’s a Commie sky, And Uncle Sam’s asleep
This was G Menon Williams, Governor of Michigan, at his humorous best. For, though the Sputnik that the former Soviet Union sent into space on October 4, 1957 weighed just 184.3 pounds, its political impact was huge. Some with keen memories had then picturesquely described it as the “bloodless Pearl Harbour.”
Well there’s been a lot of such bloodless events since
spaceship Sputnik. Space experts have been warning for years that the number of satellites in planet orbits has been increasing at a dangerously high speed. This poses a major threat to other satellites – and yet no one paid heed to them until February 10. That was the day that two communications satellites – one Russian and the other American – disintegrated, spewing tonnes of space debris in the higher and lower orbits.Says space expert Brian Weeden: “Collisions generate debris, greatly increasing the possibility of more of them. These significantly add to the expense of operating in space – a highly expensive business in itself. For instance, if the satellites were to be designed in a way so that they could protect themselves, the cost would rise proportionately. Their life in the orbit too would decrease, because to avoid collisions they would be forced to manoeuvre more frequently. Manned missions, such as space stations, would need to go to great lengths to protect humans.” The Kessler syndrome (named after a highly regarded NASA space debris researcher) is all about this phenomenon. Kessler had found that collisions create a chain reaction of further collisions.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
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