This week, Russia unsurprisingly vetoed a draft resolution to prevent the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit. Russia’s rejection of the United Nations resolution is not a clear indication that it possesses orbital arsenal that could destroy satellite constellations, but it shows the country is not wavering under…
China’s space station crew carried out two spacewalks this past winter to repair the solar wings attached to the core module, which had been damaged by space debris.
That was a really close one. Further analysis of a near-miss collision between two satellites in space revealed that they came even closer to one another than initially believed, raising more alarm over the growing danger of space debris.
Well, this is awkward. A NASA investigation confirmed that a small piece of trash tossed from the International Space Station (ISS) survived atmospheric reentry and ended up in a Florida home. This is a rare case of space junk causing damage on Earth, and the homeowner may be seeking legal action.
A Japanese mission to stalk, capture, and hurl space junk into the atmosphere is progressing rather nicely. The orbital garbage truck recently completed the rendezvous phase, parking next to a second stage rocket that’s been aimlessly zipping around Earth orbit since 2009.
On March 8, a small, cylinder-shaped object fell from the skies and crashed through the roof of a family home in Naples, Florida. Alejandro Otero, the homeowner, suspected it came from space but he wasn’t sure what he needed to do get NASA’s attention and be taken seriously.
Three years ago, NASA tossed a massive pallet of old batteries from the International Space Station (ISS), hoping that it would burn up through Earth’s atmosphere.
In a tense moment for space safety, two satellites—NASA’s TIMED spacecraft and the defunct Russian Cosmos 2221—came alarmingly close to smashing into each other above Earth, prompting concerns about the risks of space debris.
An unspecified defect in early model Starlink satellites has prompted SpaceX to preemptively deorbit the units before they potentially fail and become hazards in low Earth orbit. While the company remains confident that the deorbiting of these problematic units will prevent any issues, this incident underscores the…
After 13 years of slow orbital decay, a legacy satellite will finally be put out of its misery by plunging through Earth’s atmosphere where it will burn up into tiny fragments.
