Space - Spacex, NASA, Rocket Lab
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According to NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, there are over 8,800 metric tonnes of defunct satellites, spent rocket stages, broken components, and collision fragments in orbit. Only ~43% of objects are actively used for communication, navigation, scientific missions, or military surveillance.
This debris orbits at up to 28,000 km/h, posing a major threat to spacecraft, satellites, and the International Space Station.
Related Facts:
To get all this mass to orbit in the modern day, even with SpaceX's extremely low cost of $2,700/kg, would cost over $37 billion.
As of 2024, there are ~36,500 tracked objects in orbit larger than 10 cm, and millions of smaller untracked fragments.
The Kessler Syndrome is a feared cascade scenario where collisions create more debris, triggering an unstoppable chain reaction.
The ISS regularly performs debris avoidance maneuvers to prevent catastrophic impacts.
Active cleanup missions are in development, including magnetized tethers, robotic arms, nets, and laser systems.
The U.S., China, Russia, and private companies like SpaceX are the largest contributors to orbital hardware.
The growing space economy makes orbital debris one of the most pressing 21st-century environmental issues, though it’s invisible to most people.All Human-Made Orbital Hardware in One Image
57% of the total mass of all human-made objects in Earth's orbit consists of defunct or inactive objects. The Data: According to NASA’s Orbital Debris Pr…
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Are we supposed to see something in that video - or are my eyes completely stuffed
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Space - Spacex, NASA, Rocket Lab:
Are we supposed to see something in that video - or are my eyes completely stuffed
I couldn't see anything in the video either. The story was pretty cool though
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@dogmeat said in Space - Spacex, NASA, Rocket Lab:
The Kessler Syndrome is a feared cascade scenario where collisions create more debris, triggering an unstoppable chain reaction.thats a fascinating idea, i wonder how likely it is
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@antipodean said in Space - Spacex, NASA, Rocket Lab:
Science fiction coming to life:
Where do you insert the warp core
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Successful launch, starship made it into their target trajectory in space.
Booster didn't make it - they tried a steep angle of descent and a hard burn - looked like issues with lighting the raptor enginers.
Starlink deploy didn't happenWaiting on re-entry. Big test coming up for renewed heat shield
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Scrubbed today. Ground systems.
SpaceX has officially scrubbed the launch of today's Starship Flight 10 launch due to a problem with ground support systems.
"Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," SpaceX wrote in a status update on X.
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Pretty much a total success for SpaceX. Incredible to nail re-entry, even with so many tweaks to the rocket. This was a massive leap forward for re-usability, to go through an aggressive profile with missing heat shields drives confidence they will crackt his
