Pending Space Junk: A Very Close Call with the ISS

Is anyone else concerned that our $100 billion International Space Station (ISS) could have been gold-plated space debris last weekend?  It was a scary situation with the astronauts huddled in the Soyuz capsules hoping for the best.  This piece of debris threatening the ISS was from an old one-ton Russian Cosmos 2551 satellite that collided with an Iridium 33 satellite in 2009. The earlier Russian collision left behind thousands of pieces that need to be tracked forevermore since they threaten space craft. In June 2011 the astronauts had a similar close call with this same Russian space junk, causing them to also take shelter in the capsules.

This past January, the ISS also needed to fire its thrusters to dodge debris from a Chinese weather satellite intentionally destroyed by the Chinese military back in 2007.  And in April 2011 the ISS astronauts had to stay in the capsules to avoid this very junk.  It is not clear why the Chinese are creating lethal space junk while also planning to put their own manned space station into orbit. 

It would seem orbiting the Earth is becoming more dangerous each day.  Fortunately, we have the U.S. military's space surveillance network (SSN) tracking much of this debris.  The mission of SSN is to:

• Analyze new space launches and evaluate orbital insertion
• Detect new man-made objects in space
• Chart present position of space objects and plot their anticipated orbital paths
• Produce and maintain current orbital data of man-made space objects in a space catalog
• Inform NASA and other government entities if objects may interfere with the orbits of the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and operational satellite platforms
• Predict when and where a decaying space object will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere
• Prevent a returning space object, which to radar looks like a missile, from triggering a false alarm in missile-attack warning sensors of the U.S. and other countries
• Determine which country owns a re-entering space object
• Predict surface impacts of re-entering objects and notify the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Public Safety Canada if an object may make landfall in North America or Hawaii.

Of course, SSN can only track the larger pieces of space junk, though even debris the size of a grain of sand can cause serious problems.  SSN is already tracking space junk that is at least 4 inches (10 cm) in low-Earth orbit, the region where the ISS operates. In total, some 19,000 man made objects this size or bigger were orbiting Earth as of July 2009, mostly in low-Earth orbit.

What we really need to be wary of is the Kessler syndrome, proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978.  This idea related to a cascade of collisions in low-Earth orbit leading to the abandonment of this area, and potentially space exploration, because of the significant danger to all spacecraft.  What can we do?  Future postings will discuss some of the ideas being proposed to clean up this space debris.

2012 and Still Here, For Now at Least

With all of the predictions (and bad films) concerning the destruction of Earth in 2012, I am happy to report we have survived the first three months of the year.  Not that the world is a very safe place. In fact, the solar storm on March 9th and 10th did some real damage. 

The Pentagon is reporting the solar flares shut down some of its satellites.  While everything eventually rebooted, it would have not been a great situation in a time of war.  According to the U.S. News and World article, NASA believes the recent wave of solar storms will intensify through the end of 2012.  Even so, General William Shelton, head of the Air Force's Space Command Shelton, stated the military's satellites will be able to withstand these  future storms.  "I don't believe that anything—short of something truly catastrophic, that would be catastrophic to those of us on Earth as well, I don't believe there's a scenario where we'd wholesale lose spacecraft," Shelton said.

We had a little bit of warning about his latest storm, though it was predicted for 2013. The Telegraph noted back in 2010 that  

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years. 

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. 

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Of course, this idea could be put to the test again in 2020, when a much large solar storm may hit the Earth.   Some put such chances at only 12 percent, though the impact could be tremendous.  

One report, Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts: A Workshop Report, highlights one of the most famous solar storm called The Carrington event of 1959:

Notable for both its scientific and its technological impact, the Carrington event was probably the most important space weather event of the past 200 years. It initially attracted scientific attention because it disrupted telegraphic communication for as long as 8 hours, presented a visual panoply of nighttime lights to observers, and was widely reported in newspapers.  [R. James Caverly of the Department of Homeland Security] reasoned that a contemporary Carrington event would lead to much deeper and more widespread social disruptions than those of 1859. Basic to his contention are the enormous changes to the nation’s infrastructure over the past century and a half and the virtual certainty of additional changes in the future.

Today scientists have a better understanding of the technical causes and implications of space weather, and even of appropriate technical responses to it, than they did in the past. Knowledge of the social, institutional, and policy implications of space weather is growing but is still rudimentary. The disruption of the telegraph system in 1859 caused problems in communication, but because modern society is so dependent on large, complex, and interconnected technical systems—and because these systems not only are vital for the functioning of the economy but also are vulnerable to electromagnetic events–a contemporary repetition of the Carrington event would cause significantly more extensive (and possibly catastrophic) social and economic disruptions. [Todd La Porte, Jr., of George Mason University] said that understanding the consequences resulting from interdependencies of infrastructure disrupted during significant space weather is essential. Caverly stated that although systems may be well designed themselves, there is a need to consider the “system of systems” concept and to examine the associated dependencies in detail. He added that today there is growing awareness among planners, managers, and designers of this necessity.

So relax, we have a few years to figure this out, though the way our society is going I can picture quite a fuss if the iPhone and Facebook generation (and whatever follows) goes without an electrical connection for more than 30 seconds.  It could get ugly.

Great Images: Spitzer Capture Planet UX Tau A

Here is another great image from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

This is an artist's rendition of the one-million-year-old star system called UX Tau A, located approximately 450 light-years away. Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope showed a gap in the dusty planet-forming disk swirling around the system's central sun-like star.

Spitzer saw a gap in UX Tau A's disk that extends from 0.2 to 56 astronomical units (an astronomical unit is the distance between the sun and Earth). The gap extends from the equivalent of Mercury to Pluto in our solar system, and is sandwiched between thick inner and outer disks on either side. Astronomers suspect that the gap was carved out by one or more forming planets.

Does China Already Have a Space Station?

In a previous post, I discussed China's efforts to build its own space station.  But now I am wondering if they need to go to all that trouble.  A February 29 NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report noted someone may have obtained information to control the International Space Station as well as our other space missions:

Between April 2009 and April 2011, NASA reported the loss or theft of 48 Agency mobile computing devices, some of which resulted in the unauthorized release of sensitive data including export-controlled, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and third-party intellectual property. For example, the March 2011 theft of an unencrypted NASA notebook computer resulted in the loss of the algorithms used to command and control the International Space Station. Other lost or stolen notebooks contained Social Security numbers and sensitive data on NASA’s Constellation and Orion programs. 

While it is not certain the Chinese have access to this data, the Chinese have been caught plenty of other times trying to penetrate NASA's systems. Here are a few more from the OIG report:

-- In November 2011, [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] IT Security reported suspicious network activity involving Chinese-based IP addresses. Our review disclosed that the intruders had compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users, giving the intruders access to most of JPL’s networks. The OIG continues to investigate this matter.

-- As a result of an OIG investigation and lengthy international coordination efforts, a Chinese national was detained in December 2010 by Chinese authorities for violations of Chinese Administrative Law. This case resulted in the first confirmed detention of a Chinese national for hacking activity targeting U.S. Government agencies. Seven NASA systems, many containing export-restricted technical data, were compromised by the Chinese national.

And the Chinese are not alone.  In the report, the OIG noted the Agency has dealt with approximately 5,400 computer security incidents in 2010 and 2011, while investigators have conducted more than 16 separate investigations of similar breaches in the past few years, several of which have resulted in the arrests and convictions of foreign nationals in Estonia, Great Britain, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, Romania, and Turkey.  A nation that cannot keep its secrets cannot keep its lead.  So maybe we will see Portugal on the moon before we have a chance to return.