Last week, the CEO of Rocket Lab, a launch startup, said the company was already beginning to feel the effects of the growing congestion in outer space.
Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, said the sharp number of objects in space right now – the rapidly growing number as part of SpaceX’s satellite Internet star, Starlink – has made it more difficult for the rocket to find a clear way to launch new satellites.
“This has a huge impact on the launch side,” he told CNN Business. The Rockets will have to try their best in the meantime [satellite] Constellation. “
Part of the problem is that outer space remains largely uncontrolled. The international treaty has not been widely agreed upon in the last decade, and it largely leaves the commercial space industry to the police.
The rocket lab set out to build lightweight rockets – much smaller than SpaceX’s 230-foot Falcon rockets – that could deliver groups of small satellites into space on a monthly or weekly basis. Since 2018, Rocket Lab has launched 12 successful missions and a total of 55 satellites into space for various research and commercial purposes. Beck said traffic issues coming into orbit had turned into the worst situation in the past 12 months.
It’s not clear if the traffic from its own satellites has caused frustration for SpaceX as well. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Orbital Junkyards
Researchers have been warning for decades that congestion in outer space could have disastrous consequences. Castle warns that if space traffic becomes too dense, a single collision between two objects can effectively shut down a destructive chain reaction that effectively Rotates the space around the earth In the dirty soil of the outside world. One piece of debris will hit the satellite and that effect – like a car crash, at speeds of 17,000 miles per hour, except for one hour of orbital speed – could produce thousands if not hundreds of new pieces of debris on its own. Those new pieces can hit other hit objects in orbit, hitting other hit objects and until then, the lower Earth’s orbit is saturated with increasing amounts of uncontrollable projectiles.
And any of them can knock out a satellite, a launch rocket or even an orbiting space station.
SpaceX has said it intends to be the responsible steward of outer space. The company says it has equipped its Starlink satellites with the ability to automatically maneuver in orbit like other of objects.
Jahan hopes that more satellite tors operators and rocket companies, including SpaceX and Rocket Lab, will share real-time location data of their rockets and satellites to make forecasts more accurate.
No company has done so.
Although there have been no collisions this year, Jah warns, it could just be a matter of time.
It is practically impossible to clean up that junk on a large scale. And it will take years, not centuries, as it naturally comes out of orbit.
Jaha added that with each new satellite launch the disaster avoidance difficulties only become thinner. He is hopeful that we can avoid Castle Syndrome, even with a swarm of satellites in orbit – but only if SpaceX and the world’s Amazon agree to abide by certain rules and standards of conduct.
“Absent is the answer,” he said.
Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, said he’s disappointed that too much talk about space junk, revolving around the risk of orbital collisions, and not much about how space traffic could already impact the launch business. Satellite constellations can be particularly problematic, as satellites can fly close together, creating a kind of blockade that can stop rockets from landing.
In the early days of Rocket Lab, Beck said, the company could choose a 30-minute time limit on a given day and expect to reach orbit safely.
Recently, the company had to take “half a dozen separate launch windows because we had to get in between the train of satellites,” Beck said.
But Beck said he’s concerned about how quickly space traffic affects his own business. And he’s worried that new players in the space industry could be careless.
“It’s just an orbit run and there’s just zero consideration for what environment we’re going to keep behind,” he said. “Now any launch vehicle pilot needs to really pay attention to their responsibilities.”
Polishing outer scope
Rocket Lab recently launched its own internal investigation into the traffic issue, hoping to determine how difficult it could be for the company to grow satellite galaxies.
But for now, Beck said, the Rocket Lab will benefit from more accurate tracking of space objects. U.S. The military acts as the world’s de-facto traffic cop because it operates vast databases of active satellites and space junk, but the military no longer wants that duty.
NASA and military officials Are pushing the government to hand over the duties of traffic management to the Commerce Department, which can work to establish a more comprehensive and internationally collaborative tracking and management system.
“We are giving the world a free awareness of the global space situation and space traffic management,” Bridenstein said at the hearing. “We need to take that data, combine it with business and international data to create a unified integrated space picture that can be shared with the world. And – by the way – the world needs to support us in that endeavor.”
Last year, Congress chose to start studying the issue instead of giving the green light to reform.
Beck is also troubled by the fact that global regulation of space traffic lags far behind technology.
“Recent attempts to update the rules in the international arena are” surprisingly inspiring, but also surprisingly frustrating, “Beck said. Because countries were willing to come to the table, however, nothing really agreed on since the 1970s.
Beck said, ‘We are a place of much democratization. “But it has to be done in a way that is responsible for every pay generation.”
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