Re:Decluttering low-Earth orbit: It's time to tidy up space
by bgun on Monday January 18, 2021 @10:24AM
(#25822612)
That makes the very big assumption that the density of other things to hit doesn’t massively increase.
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Re:Decluttering low-Earth orbit: It's time to tidy up space
by charlesju on Monday January 18, 2021 @12:38PM
(#25824252)
That makes a big assumption we can't remove the junk before the density is high enough
Re:Decluttering low-Earth orbit: It's time to tidy up space
by btilly on Monday January 18, 2021 @04:27PM
(#25826849)
It is worthy of note that SpaceX is pitching Starship for active debris removal in space.
It is worthy of note from https://spacenews.com/upper-stages-top-list-of-most-dangerou... that in a list of the 50 most concerning objects in orbit, 78% are rocket bodies, and 80% were launched before 2000 when various mitigation strategies for space junk began to be improved.
There is therefore a Pareto principle at work here. We are tracking over 25,000 objects, but only a few of them contribute most of the risk, and we aren't adding as much to the risk as the number of launches would make you think.