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Tens of thousands of pieces of debris could litter space for decades, if not centuries, if a dreaded space junk collision occurs Friday afternoon, an expert warned.
Californian company LeoLabs estimated Thursday that there was a greater than 10 percent chance that a large Russian satellite and an old Chinese rocket would collide head-on at a combined speed of 53,000 kilometers per hour.
However, an updated forecast on Friday was more reassuring, suggesting that they are very likely to lose each other by at least seven meters when they cross 991 km over the Antarctic coast at 1.56 p.m.
Speaking from California, Daniel Ceperley, CEO of space monitoring firm LeoLabs, said Stuff that if they did, it would be a “really high consequence” event.
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With a combined mass of 2.8 tons, they were “massive satellites,” he said.
If there were a collision, the amount of space debris in low Earth orbit would increase substantially, he said.
“In an instant, there could be 25% more debris in low Earth orbit – you really don’t want that to happen.”
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LeoLabs hopes to find a Chinese rocket still in one piece when it passes through New Zealand on Friday afternoon.
The debris could destroy other satellites, potentially causing outages as diverse as broadband, asset tracking and environmental monitoring, he said.
But any impact would likely be felt over time, rather than immediately, as the debris spread out over a period of weeks to form a “debris belt” nearly 1000 km above Earth.
“One of the big problems is that there are a lot of satellite constellations planned above 1000 km, so if this collision occurs, they would have to navigate through it on the way up and then on the way back when satellites are removed. Ceperley said.
A “useful” orbit about 750 km above Earth had already had to be vacated due to a Chinese anti-satellite weapons test in 2007 and a somewhat smaller satellite collision in 2009 that had created a large volume of debris, he said.
“If we keep removing parts of the space that are usable, it will run out of space in the not too distant future.”
LeoLabs explains the reasons for building its Naseby space radar in 2018.
Ceperley thought that any collision on Friday was unlikely to be visible from Earth.
He doubted anyone on Earth was at risk, as any trash thrown at them would burn up in the atmosphere.
Instead, LeoLabs should find out for sure if any collisions occurred within a few hours, when the body of the Chinese rocket is scheduled to pass through its state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar space radar near Naseby in downtown Otago.
“That will be our first confirmation,” he said.
The Naseby radar is the first built by LeoLabs that is capable of finding and tracking pieces of debris as small as 2cm in diameter, with a second now under construction in Costa Rica and two more on the planning board.
Ceperley said progress on international agreements to address space debris had been slow, but praised the New Zealand Space Agency, a division of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
LeoLabs Vice President Alan DeClerck said people “might underestimate how important New Zealand’s leadership has been.”
“We are facing an event of potential global importance and the Kiwi space radar is playing a critical role in everyone’s understanding of what is happening here.”
