That space debris is a growing problem This is neither news nor a surprise, but it is something we must keep in mind because its consequences can be devastating. Between the end of last year and the beginning of this 2022 alone, we had evidence of three incidents in low orbit, one involving the International Space Station and some remnants of space debris, the other involving the Chinese space station and a Starlink satellite that failed to move from collision course, and a third in which space debris nearly collided with a Chinese satellite.

During last years Several systems have been proposed that try to end this problem however, to date there is still no effective and working solution that has added to the increasing saturation of low orbit something that will increase even more in the future, prompting a forecast for the future that, as I have said elsewhere, is an accident waiting to happen, when it happens Accident yes, because we are constantly adding incidents.

The most recent example of this can be found in an incident reported by the European Space Agency (ESA) on its website, and late identification of an object heading for one of the ESA Swarm satellites exploring the Earth’s magnetic field. Of course, this is not the first time something like this has happened. The problem is that these situations are usually identified with more than 24 hours, but on this occasion there was a warning with only eight to go for potential impact.

ESA engineers who manage Swarm, who have already worked on changing the satellite’s orbit, they only had a fraction of the time normally used to perform calculations on the satellite’s motion. And it is that at this point we return to the problem of saturation of a low orbit, in which any movement must be calculated in millimeters, taking into account the orbits that describe all the objects located on it. In other words, it was a calculation with time.

Fortunately, the engineers were able to safely perform the calculations and adjust the satellite’s position, which is something to celebrate, but also another reminder that new satellites (and especially Starlink-type megaconstellations) continue to inhabit low orbit. and other garbage leads us to a collision sooner or laterthe effects of which can be disastrous for all activities in low orbit.