US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established new regulations addressing the rising risk of space junk or discarded satellites, rockets, and other debris.
The new "5-year-rule" mandates that operators of low-Earth orbit satellites deorbit them within five years of mission completion. This is a major reduction in time from the previous recommendation of 25 years, as reported first by Engadget.
However, 25 years is a large amount of time, according to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. She argues that the second space age is here, and there is no longer any reason to wait that long, especially in low-Earth orbit.
"For it to continue to grow, we need to do more to clean up after ourselves so space innovation can continue to respond," Rosenworcel said in a statement.
10,000 Defunct Satellites
Since 1957, nearly 10,000 satellites weighing thousands of metric tons have been launched, with more than half of those being defunct at this time, according to Rosenworcel.
She added that the new regulation would lead to increased responsibility, decreased collision risk, and the likelihood of communication failures.
However, not all US lawmakers necessarily concur with the choice. In a letter, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology members stated that NASA frequently makes judgments of this nature.
The FCC may generate uncertainty and potentially conflicting instructions for the space industry by acting alone, according to the lawmakers.
They requested that the FCC inform Congress of its reasoning behind the choice, arguing that doing so "would ensure that procedural measures such as the Congressional Review Act are not necessary."
According to NASA, there are 23,000 space junk larger than a softball orbiting the planet. It was highlighted that the debris issue was exacerbated by more than 3,500 pieces of large, trackable debris and other smaller pieces of trash from China's 2007 anti-satellite test.
Space Junk Risks
The likelihood of fatalities from falling rocket debris over the next ten years has been calculated by a recent study that was published in Nature Astronomy.
The authors calculated the locations of rocket debris and other space junk when they fall back to Earth using mathematical modeling of rocket part inclinations and orbits in space and population density below them, as well as 30 years' worth of satellite data.
The researchers found slight but significant harm from space junk falling back to Earth in the next ten years. However, this is more likely to occur in southern latitudes instead of northern ones.
According to the study, rocket bodies are about three times more likely to crash at the latitudes of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jakarta in Indonesia, or Lagos in Nigeria than in the US's New York, Russia's Moscow, and China's Beijing.
The authors also estimated the risk to human life over the following ten years due to uncontrolled rocket reentries as a "casualty expectation."
According to the researchers, there is a 10% chance that rocket debris will lethally hit someone on Earth. But at the same time, they said that it is still a conservative estimate.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
