Fragments of spent rockets and other debris are clogging up the area above the stratosphere. As tensions ratchet up on Earth, some space agencies fear the next frontier of conflict could be above us.
abc.net.au/news/how-space-junk-could-trigger-war-among-the-stars/102681410In January 2022, space watchers were startled when a Chinese satellite suddenly moved from its usual path around the globe, docked with a derelict spacecraft and flung it into what's known as a "graveyard orbit".
"Shijian-21 ... could be used in a future system for grappling and disabling other satellites," the head of the US Space Command, General James Dickinson, said at the time., there's a new Space Race underway as major military powers try to safeguard their vital equipment floating around Earth's orbit.
"For the sake of national security, we will dramatically scale up the use of space systems and ensure the safe and stable utilisation of the domain," the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed. That would make it impossible to launch more satellites without them also being obliterated by the junk cloud. But as more spacecraft enters the domain, including a rush of commercial operators like Elon Musk's SpaceX program, ensuring safe operations is increasingly difficult.
"There is no space police person cruising though [space], pulling over satellites that aren't following the rules," Astroscale's chief operations officer Chris Blackerby said. "Right now, capturing a satellite is difficult, because it doesn't have a natural place where you can grab onto it."It's not uncommon for satellites to "stalk" each other in space.
Takaaki Yamamoto, 24, is part of Japan's Space Operations Group, which monitors the skies around the clock."There is no rule that says it's illegal to come within a certain distance. We can't say, 'what are you doing so close?' or 'move out of the way'.
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