Boffins say hold-ups caused by airspace shutdowns to allow bits of old rocket or dead satellite to fall to Earth could become as common as weather delays
Aircraft passengers should brace themselves for flight delays due to space junk dropping out of the sky.
Boffins say hold-ups caused by airspace shutdowns to allow bits of old rocket or dead satellite to fall to Earth could become as common as weather delays.
Researchers from the University of British Colombia in Canada say there is a 26% chance a chunk of space junk that has not burned up re-entering the atmosphere will plummet through the world’s busiest airspace this year.
By 2030 there will be a 1-in-1,000 chance of a bit hitting an aircraft midflight.
With around 14,000 planes in the sky at any one time those odds are deemed way too high.
In November 2022 the 20-ton core stage of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over Spain prompting the cancellation, delays or re-routing of 300 flights.
Last year European airspace was shut again while part of a SpaceX craft returned to Earth.
Experts are working on a series of initiatives in a bid to reduce the chances of a disaster.
First they are developing craft to clean up space rubbish.
Brit firms are among world leaders in orbit-hoovering tech.
Officials are also working on junk-tracking devices that will ensure aircraft operators know precisely which zones to avoid.
Boffins say part of a craft falls back into Earth’s atmosphere once-a-week. Most are empty rocket stages or dead satellites.
While most shred upon re-entry some bits of debris can exist long enough to plummet through the sky – ranging from dust-sized particles to propellant tanks.
European Space Agency system engineer Benjamin Virgili Bastida said all present a danger to planes.
“Aircraft can be affected by much smaller pieces of debris,” he said.
“Airplanes flying through the ash of a volcano is risky because of the small particles.
“Kind of a similar thing could happen with re-entering debris.”
He recently published a paper in the Journal of Space Safety Engineering outlining the challenges of deciding when and where to close airspace for falling space debris.
“What we are trying to investigate in the studies we are running is to see what is really the threshold for risk for an aircraft,” he said.
“At what risk should we react
“If we react at every risk half of the world will be impacted every now and then so it’s not feasible.
“Do we react for everything which has a chance to reach the ground?
“Or do we react only for the very large objects as we did for the Long March?
“The probability of being hit by space debris is very low.
“The sky is not going to fall on your head.
“But we are working on ways to do it even better.”
Engineers are trying to more accurately predict where and when spacecraft will re-enter so space agencies and air traffic controllers can better coordinate their response to in-coming junk.
According to Space.com the margin of error for predicting where and when debris falls is currently several hours – which translates to thousands of miles.
When it launches next year the European Space Agency’s DRACO – Destructive Re-entry Assessment Container Objective – mission will use 200 sensors to measure how a satellite disintegrates during its plunge into Earth’s atmosphere.
That will tell boffins exactly when and where different components burn or break up.
The data will help narrow airspace shutdowns to a minimum while protecting aircraft passenger safety.
Space and aviation analyst Ian Christensen, senior director for private sector programs at the Secure World Foundation, said: “There’s a desire to be more specific and make those windows and closures as narrow and constrained as safety allows.
“The aviation world is very driven by standards and we’re seeing a lot of activity in the space world around standards as well.
“Those give us ways to develop technical mitigation approaches, technical solutions, and then implement them at the national level with some coordination internationally.
“I’m optimistic that at the technical level and at the operational level we’ll be able to work on this issue and make significant success.”
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