It is, perhaps, more than a little on brand for humanity to have dangerously polluted low Earth orbit before even becoming a starfaring civilization, but space junk is a genuine problem.
In recent weeks, SpaceX Starlink satellites have been falling to Earth at an alarmingly high rate. As Futurism reported, a startup recently introduced a solution.
Astrophysicist and astronomer Jonathan McDowell was widely credited with alerting the public to the increasing risk of plummeting satellites, and he knows a lot about space debris. McDowell spoke to Harvard Magazine in June about this logistically and diplomatically complex issue.
The outlet noted that there were around 25,000 pieces of "tracked" space junk in low Earth orbit at the time of publication, "in an environment that is becoming increasingly hazardous."
McDowell mentioned a 2009 collision between an active American orbiter and an obsolete Soviet craft, with a force "50,000 times the energy of a high-speed car crash." Objects in orbit move at incredible speeds, which means even minor impacts cause major damage.
In addition to the 25,000 pieces of junk humanity has left in space, Futurism cited a potential "170 million bits of smaller debris" that is too small to quantify but just as capable of causing a fiery conflagration.
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Against the backdrop of headlines about falling Starlink equipment, aerospace startup Atomic-6 introduced a composite material-based solution called Space Armor, which it defines as "impact-shielding tiles."
Admittedly, this technology is designed to function in flight and not on the ground, but it's a step in the right direction.
"Satellites and astronauts are constantly threatened by millions of untrackable, hypervelocity particles in orbit," Atomic-6 stated. "Like a loose pebble hitting your windshield on the highway, orbital debris can strike at any time to do significant damage to spacecraft."
Atomic-6 CEO Trevor Smith talked to Space.com about the 18-month development trajectory of Space Armor.
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The government 🏛️ Smith said the firm was "blown away" by the hexagonal tiles it produced, which the company says protect "against all untrackable debris" and over 90% of debris in low Earth orbit.
The outlet noted that, in addition to shielding satellites and other spacecraft against space junk, Space Armor minimizes the production of debris in collisions.
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