Don’t mess with low-Earth orbit
U.S. and Russia should adopt an international ban on missile tests that cause more debris.
Two weeks ago, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei was fast asleep aboard the International Space Station when Mission Control in Houston phoned in.
A satellite had exploded in space — and debris was headed their way. Vande Hei and his crewmates, two Russian cosmonauts, were ordered to take shelter in Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft until the debris cleared. Meanwhile, members of NASA’s Crew-3 mission, whose four astronauts had just arrived the week before, hunkered down in the SpaceX Dragon, which had ferried them from Earth.
The astronauts and cosmonauts spent two hours sheltered from the fallout of the explosion, something that probably wasn’t too harrowing for folks in one of the most dangerous professions — one in which even mundane human errors can be deadly.
This explosion, however, was no mistake. It was a calculated show of strength from Russia, a rival state that has been a steady ally in space even as it has become an increasing threat to the United States.
The Nov. 16 blast that forced the astronauts to hunker down was from Russia striking its own Soviet-era satellite with a missile in space, creating more than 1,500 pieces of sizable debris and hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces that could stay in orbit for decades.
While Russia’s Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying the test “will not pose a threat to orbital stations,” even the smallest piece of space junk can do a lot of damage when it collides with a space station moving at 17,500 mph.
Russia’s reckless missile launch reminds us just how littered the last frontier is with floating waste. Imagine a highway where wrecks are never cleared but drivers still whizz past on their regular routes, business as usual.
That’s what happened when Russia’s satellite exploded, and its thousands of pieces of detritus streamed out into the lower-Earth orbit, they joined an already massive belt of debris that could eventually completely obstruct access to space. It’s already hampering routine space operations. On Monday, NASA decided to delay a spacewalk at the ISS because of debris.
As America plans to invest billions in a commercial spaceflight program in lowEarth orbit, the existence of what amounts to an “Empire Strikes Back”like asteroid belt full of trash moving at about 15,000 mph presents a unique hazard for further exploration.
If you’ve seen the movie “Gravity,” in which an astronaut played by Sandra Bullock gets lost in space after orbiting junk shreds her space shuttle, then you’re probably familiar with this nightmare scenario, imagined by a NASA scientist as long ago as 1978. Only now, with space tourism on the rise, it could be Michael Strahan getting tied up in space clutter instead of fully trained astronauts.
Cosmic clutter was already a problem before Russia’s episode earlier this month, and while the missile launch should be condemned, the United States is no innocent bystander. We have conducted numerous anti-satellite weapons tests, as recently as 2008, contributing to the debris problem. Our own dangerous behavior in space is perceived as permission by Russia, China and India to proceed with their own tests without fear of real repercussions. Indeed, barely 48 hours after the Russian satellite test, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, had apparently smoothed over any hard feelings.
Nelson should know better than to shrug off this incident. A former U.S. senator who as a congressman joined the crew of the Columbia shuttle in 1986, he learned after landing that the shuttle took major hits from debris during its flight, including on one of the rocket engines and two craters found around the window near the pilot’s chair.
Nelson should use that experience, and this latest close call in space, to demand the United States and other nations active in space to minimize the amount of space rubble.
The number of satellites set to launch is growing exponentially, making it urgent that Congress requires the Federal Communications Commission to implement a rule it has already proposed, but not yet finalized, that would make collision risk a central part of acquiring agency permission for new satellites.
But bolder steps are required, too. The United States and Russia should commit to an international treaty to ban antisatellite missile tests. The two superpowers have banned such tests on their own in the past. Bringing in other countries such as China and India would ensure that every space-faring nation is committed to being a responsible steward of low-Earth orbit.
Astronauts at the International Space Station should be able to rest easy in orbit knowing that a softball-sized piece of debris won’t blast a hole through their living quarters — or through the greater mission of space exploration.