ABSTRACT
Introduction ............................................................................................................364 Orbital Debris ........................................................................................................ 365 Old Spacecraft ........................................................................................................366 Fragmentation Debris .............................................................................................366 Rockets and Rocket Bodies.................................................................................... 369 Mission-Related Debris ......................................................................................... 371 Impact of Orbital Debris ........................................................................................ 372 Kessler Syndrome .................................................................................................. 373 Debris Management ............................................................................................... 374 Debris Modeling .................................................................................................... 374 Debris Measurement .............................................................................................. 374 Debris Mitigation ................................................................................................... 376 Debris Removal ...................................................................................................... 376 Terrestrial Debris versus Space Debris ................................................................. 377 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 378 References .............................................................................................................. 379
The remains of a culture offer insight into its nature, and therefore the study of such debris can provide important evidence that affects how that culture is later understood. These remains are sometimes hidden in unknown places. They are rarely found neatly laid out, ready for analysis; mostly they are found broken and scattered. Studies of humankind’s spacefaring cultures yields important artifacts in museums, and some documents in le cabinets are carefully laid away for study. Other studies might take one to the less-well-tended, abandoned facilities that birthed and nurtured success in space. Operating space systems are messy enterprises, and one cannot help but leave artifacts, or debris, scattered about. Orbital space debris consists of objects primarily orbiting Earth that are created by humans and no longer have a useful purpose. Examples are burnt rocket stages, rocket slag, defective satellites, screws, paint akes, and explosion fragments. For our current society, they re ect the maturing space age, the globalization of space, the Cold War, and the end of the Cold War. Unlike many lost or ancient cultures, though, humankind’s space culture is recent, and its trash-bin has been carefully watched over the years. The exact origin is known for more than 10,000 objects in the U.S. Strategic Command’s catalogue, which was gathered by a number of ground-based radar facilities and telescopes, as well as by a space-based telescope.1 Exotic lost examples are the outer glove lost by Edward White (Gemini 4) on America’s rst spacewalk, as well as tools and cameras
lost by other astronauts. Most of those unusual objects have reentered the atmosphere of Earth within weeks, because of the low orbits where they were released and their small sizes, and are not major contributors to the space debris environment.
