{"id":219677,"date":"2022-12-23T21:10:02","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T15:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=219677"},"modified":"2022-12-23T21:10:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T15:40:02","slug":"the-uncontrolled-re-entries-of-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-uncontrolled-re-entries-of-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"The uncontrolled re-entries of satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>– The post is based on the article \u201cThe uncontrolled re-entries of satellites\u201d <\/strong>published in The Hindu <\/strong>on 23rd December 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Awareness in the field of space<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>– Issues related to safety of space assets<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>– The article explains the issue of uncontrolled re-entry of satellites.<\/p>\n

What are the stages of a rocket launch?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Today, there are more than 6,000 satellites in orbit, most of them in low-earth and geostationary orbits<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Rockets have multiple stages<\/strong>. Once a stage has increased the rocket\u2019s altitude and velocity by a certain amount, the rocket sheds it.<\/p>\n

Some rockets jettison all their larger stages before reaching the destination orbit<\/strong>. A smaller engine then moves the payload to its final orbit. Others carry the payload to the orbit, then perform a deorbit manoeuvre<\/strong> to begin their descent. In both cases, rocket stages come back down in controlled or uncontrolled ways.<\/p>\n

What is an uncontrolled re-entry?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In an uncontrolled re-entry, the rocket stage simply falls. Its path down is determined by its shape, angle of descent, air currents<\/strong> and other characteristics. It will also disintegrate<\/strong> as it falls.<\/p>\n

Most rocket parts have landed in oceans principally because earth\u2019s surface has more water than land. But many have dropped on land as well.<\/p>\n

Some pieces burn up entirely while others don\u2019t. But because of the speed at which they\u2019re travelling, debris can be deadly.<\/p>\n

Why are scientists worried about the re-entries?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Parts of a SpaceX Falcon 9<\/strong> that fell down in Indonesia in 2016 included two \u201crefrigerator-sized fuel tanks\u201d. If re-entering stages still hold fuel, atmospheric and terrestrial chemical contamination<\/strong> is another risk.<\/p>\n

The USA, it requires all launches to keep the chance of a casualty from a re-entering body to be below 0.01%. But the U.S. Air Force and NASA have waived this requirement on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n

A July 2022 study by researchers in Canada found that this threshold is arbitrary<\/strong> and makes little sense in an era when new technologies and mission profiles<\/strong> enable controlled re-entrie<\/strong>s. Many places have also become more densely populated.<\/p>\n

There is no international binding agreement<\/strong> to ensure rocket stages always perform controlled re-entries nor on the technologies with which to do so. The Liability Convention 1972 <\/strong>requires countries to pay for damages, not prevent them.<\/p>\n

A 2021 report of the International Space Safety Foundation<\/strong> said, \u201can impact anywhere on an airliner with debris of mass above 300 grams would produce a catastrophic failure<\/strong>. It means all people on board would be killed\u201d.<\/p>\n

How can the damages be minimised?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Satellite bodies should aim for an ocean in order to avoid human casualties<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Future solutions<\/strong> should be extended to re-entering satellites as well. Advances in electronics and fabrication<\/strong> have made way for smaller satellites, which are easier to build and launch in large numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source– The post is based on the article \u201cThe uncontrolled re-entries of satellites\u201d published in The Hindu on 23rd December 2022. Syllabus: GS3- Awareness in the field of space Relevance– Issues related to safety of space assets News– The article explains the issue of uncontrolled re-entry of satellites. What are the stages of a rocket… Continue reading The uncontrolled re-entries of satellites<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-219677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704810991},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}