Latest Space debris Stories

NASA ordered three astronauts to seek shelter in their attached capsule after a small piece of space junk drifted dangerously close to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday. The space agency gave the order after determining there was not enough time to steer the orbiting outpost away from the space junk. The debris is from a Chinese satellite that was deliberately destroyed in 2007 as part of a weapons test.  It was projected to pass within three miles of the space station,...

The problem of space junk floating around Earth, which could one day force nations to cancel interstellar missions, could be solved using ground-based lasers, claims a new report prepared by NASA-affiliated scientists.According to Stuart Gary of ABC News Australia, there are currently more than 19,000 objects at least 10cm in size orbiting our planet, while Charles Cooper of CBS News reports that NASA estimates that the total number of debris surrounding the planet tops the 500,000 mark, with...

By Dauna Coulter, Science @ NASAEvery day about 100 tons of meteoroids -- fragments of dust and gravel and sometimes even big rocks "“ enter the Earth's atmosphere. Stand out under the stars for more than a half an hour on a clear night and you'll likely see a few of the meteors produced by the onslaught. But where does all this stuff come from? Surprisingly, the answer is not well known.Now NASA is deploying a network of smart cameras across the United States to answer the question, What's...

U.S. and French defense leaders agreed on Tuesday to help track space debris and avoid collisions of vital satellites. The accord reflects a new U.S. space security policy that calls for forging an alliance of foreign partners to save costs and counter possible threats to satellites that reinforce U.S. military's high-tech weaponry. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a joint press conference with his French counterpart, Alain Juppe, that with a growing number of countries operating...

A Pentagon report warned that space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an "uncontrolled chain reaction" capable of destroying the communications network on Earth. Scientists said that the volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in Earth's orbit is reaching a "tipping point" and is now threatening the $250 billion space services industry. The report said that a collision between two satellites or large...

Global Aerospace Corporation (GAC) announced recently that Dr. Kristin L. Gates will present a paper on de-orbiting space junk at the August 2 Artificial and Natural Space Debris session of the AIAA Astrodynamics Specialists Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Gates will describe GAC's Gossamer Orbit Lowering Device (GOLD) for safe and efficient removal from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) of dangerous space objects. The patented GOLD system concept uses a very large ultra thin balloon envelope...

Debris from a Chinese satellite that had concerned scientists earlier Thursday is now not expected to pose a threat to the International Space Station, according to NASA officials. NASA said the debris will come no closer than 5 miles to the space station. It said no crew action is necessary and operations will not be affected. Mission Control gave the Expedition 24 crew the all-clear at 12:45 pm EDT. Earlier on Thursday, NASA reported that a piece of debris from a Chinese satellite may pass...

A Russian official said Friday that debris from a satellite destroyed in 2007 by a Chinese missile is nearing the International Space Station and astronauts are ready to take cover if necessary. Chinese weather satellite Feng Yung 1C was shot down by a ground missile launched from China. "If the calculations show that the debris is approaching the station at an unacceptably close range, the six astronauts will receive the order to take shelter in the two Russian Soyuz spacecraft which...

An Australian company announced on Tuesday that it has developed a laser tracking system that will stop chunks of space debris from colliding with satellites. Electric Optic Systems said lasers fired from the ground would locate and track debris as small as four inches across. "We can track them to very high precision so that we can predict whether there are going to be collisions with other objects or not," Craig Smith, the company's CEO, told AFP.He said the technology is an...

An Air Force satellite that will provide the first continuous tracking of thousands of pieces of space debris and hundreds of satellites is set to launch on Thursday.The new Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite is set to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and will give scientists a full-time view of the increasingly congested traffic in Earth's orbit.The Air Force currently lacks such a system, and must rely instead on a ground-based global network of radar and optical...