A little more than half a century since then, as the man launched in 1957 the first satellite into space, and has been an incredible, exotic ceased to be a problem per se, but rather has become a real threat.The first flights into space have been marked by a general euphoria.Anyone and does not occur to a question: where to get to spent satellites, what will become of launchers, what about the dust from the fuel burned?USSR and the USA race mastered the near-Earth space, in orbit more and more missiles, satellites and stations.And the consequences of this short-sighted policy not long in coming: in 1978, Canada dropped the wreckage of the Soviet satellite "Cosmos-594".Then the Soviet Union paid a huge sum of money affected the country for the elimination of the effects of radiation poisoning.But in less than a year, as the wreckage of the American station, no longer used, were scattered over Australia.
to casualties had fallen to the ground debris in both cases did not lead, however, incidents have forced scientists to think about.Indeed, in the near-Earth space in their orbits ply not only satellites and the International Space Station (number about 700), but has spent his time station, fragments thereof, and other man-made objects.And if the garbage on our planet can be somewhere locate and dispose of, the objects vibrant space activities of mankind is made out.These emissions could be forgotten and, if they did not move.And they fly in the vacuum of space at great speed - 9 kilometers per second.Collision at a speed of the spacecraft with a small piece of iron the size of only a few centimeters can ram the casing and lead to disaster.
According to scientists, space junk in the past half-century has grown to unimaginable proportions.According to various orbits around the Earth rotates 11 thousand objects of value of more than 10 cm and 600 thousand waste from one to ten centimeters value.Now, developing new models of spacecraft engineers think through and protect them from possible collisions with unwanted flying objects.The movement of particularly large pieces of the following special radars that warn astronauts of the impending threat.ISS 3-4 times a year should deviate from its route to avoid a collision with debris.
Thus, space travel was not safe yet because the space explorers can suddenly and fatally meet bulk garbage, plowing the starry expanse.And if the trim of the ship allows you to save the whole body (and even then, from small waste), it does not apply to solar cells that cover and protect nothing.The worst part is that sometimes two different objects collide and break.Close the object disappears from the radar, and instead appear thousands of smaller but no less hazardous fragments.
But how to remove space debris?So far, no brainer, how to observe the movement of particularly large waste and to develop the trajectory of the new satellites in view of movement of debris of old ships, not invented.There is a utopian project, put forward by the Swiss Institute of Technology of Lausanne, according to which, it is necessary to detach the orbit of the satellite «Clean Space One», which will find one piece of garbage, take him away and rushed to the Earth, where both of them and burn up in the atmosphere.But, as it seems to be 8 million. EUR - too high a price for cleaning a single fragment.
So far, scientists have focused on the problem of how to ensure that debris does not expand in the future.Now the end-of-age companions translate into a lower orbit, so they entered the Earth's gravity and burned in the atmosphere, or, on the contrary, they are taken to a higher trajectory, where they are not at risk of bump on the operating units.The remains of the nuclear fuel drained from the rocket stages to prevent explosions from the clashes.
