Source: Space News

Another Wake-up CallDebris poses a clear, present and growing danger to space operations. The latest wake-up call to take steps to address this danger was provided by the Feb. 10 collision between a dead Cosmos satellite and a revenue-producing Iridium satellite. This dreaded event may have produced the second worst debris field in the history of the space age. Debris travels at 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet at altitudes where hundreds of satellites used for intelligence gathering, personal communications and Earth observation operate. If a single piece of debris the size of a child's marble strikes one of these satellites, the international space station or the space shuttle it would strike with the equivalent force of a 1 ton safe dropped from a five-story building.

Some debris is inevitably released during every space launch. Extremely large spikes in space debris have been caused by space weapon tests designed to kill satellites on impact. In 1985, the administration of then U.S. President Ronald Reagan carried out a destructive anti-satellite weapon test, turning an aging U.S. weather satellite into 300 pieces of trackable debris. One lethal debris fragment from this test came within a mile of the newly launched international space station — 14 years later. It took 19 years for the debris caused by this test to burn out of the Earth's atmosphere. After this experience, the Pentagon lost enthusiasm for debris-producing anti-satellite weapon tests.

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