By Girish Linganna
The night sky looks peaceful, but thousands of broken satellites and rocket pieces are circling Earth at 28,000 kilometres per hour. This growing space junk is turning our orbit into a danger zone and can damage the satellites we rely on every day for communication, weather forecasts, GPS navigation, and television. Around Earth there is now a ring of old satellites, rocket parts, and tiny metal or paint fragments, all speeding faster than bullets.
This junk is not harmless. In 2024, a small fragment from the International Space Station’s service module punched through a roof in Florida, proving that debris can threaten lives on Earth too. Earth’s orbit is shared space that everyone uses but no one owns. All communication, navigation, and weather satellites move through the same paths. When a country or company leaves behind rocket parts or broken satellites, the danger grows for everyone. The biggest danger often comes from debris that cannot be tracked.
Space junk began with the early superpowers. During the space race, the United States and the Soviet Union launched thousands of rockets and test objects without plans to bring them back. Prestige mattered more than protection. Each mission left fuel tanks, bolts, and metal parts that became dangerous debris circling Earth. Even today, most space junk traces back to those early missions. Later, Europe, Japan, and China added more. Agencies recognised the full scale only after decades of buildup, realising we had created a landfill in the sky without even knowing it.
Two incidents shocked the world and made the problem impossible to ignore. In January 2007, China destroyed its own FY-1C weather satellite in a test, creating over 2,300 large pieces and many thousands of smaller fragments. Then on 27 March 2019, India’s Mission Shakti destroyed the Microsat-R satellite. Hundreds of fragments were detected, some flying higher than the International Space Station. One event can create thousands of pieces and endanger satellites and astronauts for years. As astrophysicist Shravan Hanasoge, writing for the Indian Express, has pointed out, these incidents highlight how quickly we can turn orbital space into a hazard zone that affects everyone.
Cleaning up space is almost impossible. Millions of metal pieces are flying at extreme speeds, and many fragments cannot be seen or tracked. Even millimetre-size pieces can seriously damage satellites. Removing large debris requires matching speed with the object, capturing it safely, and bringing it down to Earth, all of which is risky and costly. In higher orbits, junk can stay for centuries unless deliberately brought down. The debris crosses borders, so cooperation between countries is essential, but difficult to achieve.
If we ignore the problem, collisions will become frequent. This can trigger something called the Kessler Syndrome, where one crash causes many more crashes, making parts of orbit unsafe for years or even decades. That would disrupt communication, weather forecasts, GPS, farming data, and disaster relief. Even small debris measuring just one to ten centimetres can cause serious damage. Replacing or repairing satellites costs hundreds of millions of rupees, while the loss of services on Earth can cost even more. Yet there is no global system or fund to pay now to prevent future crashes. This is a classic commons failure where everyone shares the risk, but no one takes full responsibility.
Some important actions have begun. Improved tracking systems using more radars, telescopes, and shared databases help detect small debris and warn about possible collisions. End-of-life rules now say that satellites and rocket parts should return to Earth within 25 years or move to safe graveyard orbits far from active satellites. Active cleanup missions are being developed. Japan and India are working on laser-equipped satellites to remove junk by 2027. New policies and international agreements are being discussed to assign responsibility and promote safer practices.
Every cleanup mission needs political and economic approval. The key questions remain open: who takes the risk and who pays for it? Until these questions are answered, debris will grow faster than cleanup efforts. Each mission may cost hundreds of millions or even billions of rupees, but the benefit is global. If we ignore cleanup, future launch pads will look like garbage dumps, not gateways to space.
The space junk we leave is not harmless. It threatens services we depend on daily. Cleaning space is hard and expensive because we cannot simply send trucks. It needs rockets, robots, lasers, tethers (strong cables used to drag debris), and global teamwork. The next space race is not about who can go farther, but about who can take responsibility for what we have already left behind. Without action, the sky above us will become too dangerous to use, cutting us off from the technology that modern life depends on. (IPA Service)
The author is a defence analyst.
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