Our future could be smashing

This plot shows the debris objects large enough to be tracked from the ground that a hypothetical mission would encounter at various altitudes, and where they came from.

A large proportion of debris objects in orbit today are leftover from just a couple “fragmentation events”, namely the infamous collision between satellites cosmos-2251 and Iridium 33 in 2009 which created a huge cloud of debris, as well as various rocket related debris and the intentional explosion of Fengyun 1C in 2007. At lower altitudes, our fictional satellite will frequently encounter smaller satellites and constellations which need to be coordinated.

One vital solution is to ensure functional satellites are able to avoid collision with the debris that crosses their path. The process of ‘swerving’ a satellite out of the way of debris is time consuming but vital, and ESA is working on an automated system that will ensure collision avoidance remains practical as the number of satellites in orbit continues to rapidly increase.