In another FQ thread about sending info centers out in space, it was mentioned as a possibility that rather than repair and refit them we could just let them die and replace them with new ones. Is there reliable data being kept as to what is currently up there orbiting our planet and where it might be?
Quite a lot, and yes, there are people tracking it.
From your site: "This series of visualizations illustrates the population of objects orbiting Earth as of February 2024. The data comes from United States Space Command (USSPACECOM), via space-track.org, which maintains a publicly available catalog of trackable objects in space. These include active satellites, defunct spacecraft, rocket bodies, and debris fragments larger than roughly 10 cm in low Earth orbit. While smaller debris also exists, it typically goes untracked due to observational limits, making the actual number of objects in orbit significantly higher than what is shown here.
The NASA Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) Program located at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) provides conjunction analysis and risk assessment services for all NASA spacecraft not affiliated with human space flight. CARA is responsible for protecting the orbital environment from collision between NASA non-human space flight missions and other tracked and cataloged on-orbit objects."
I wouldn’t mind a little clarification (in case I missed that part of the article) as to whether they accurately keep track of non-NASA affiliated objects, like from private concerns and other countries. By the way, I saw the photos and illistrations. Very disturbing.
That site’s number of 31,000 tracked objects seems reasonably consistent with other sites. They really need to track as much as they physically can, because anything could cause a collision and damage.
https://aerospace.org/space-debris
I think what the CARA people are talking about is that they’re responsible for avoiding problems caused by NASA’s assets in space. They worry about other people’s stuff, but they’re not the ones who can do anything about that stuff. Each space launching entity is responsible for their own stuff.
I am not talking about doing anything about it, because that would be more of a GD question, perhaps.
I would like to know if Musk (as an example of a private concern), or China or Russia or France (as examples of other countries) accurately relay what information they have to United States Space Command or some other group.
They don’t need to relay any information, as the US actively tracks everything, with quite an extensive network of sensors.
Pretty impressive! Is the USSSN protected from the proposed severe NASA budget cuts, or is it safe for the foreseeable future? NASA’s disastrous 2026 budget proposal in… | The Planetary Society
On that, I have no idea. Elon Musk probably knows enough not to push for it to be cut, but who knows what Trump might do? “Why are we monitoring trash? Is this some weenie enviro-lefty nonsense? Cut it!”
A reminder that we’re in FQ.
It’s not operated by NASA. It’s a service of United States Space Force, so DoD.
How would data centers in space ever work?
The main problem with terrestrial data centers is dissipation of heat, which is why they use water in cooling. But in space there is no fluid to remove heat – space is a near-vacuum (like the vacuum used as insulation in thermos bottles). One of the major problems in astronaut’s space suits is cooling the occupant to prevent heat strokes. So I think it would be very hard to keep a data center in space cooled enough to work.
Also, data centers do a lot of communications. On earth, this is easily done via land lines. In space, this would have to be done via radio broadcasts. So I can see some bandwidth limitations in communicating with in-space data centers.
They track everything (that they can), warn of probable collisions, and, as has been stated, it is not NASA and other countries are also involved.
It was my misconception as a kid that Ed White’s glove was among the debris tracked for years by NASA. Apparently, it burned up on re-entry a month after the 1965 mission.
Tangentially related thread:How much of a real threat is the Kessler syndrome
Objects in lower orbits will de-orbit themselves fairly soon due to resitance from the very thin atmosphere. Below 200 miles, air drag will probably cause re-entry in less than a year. The stuff over 600km/360 miles could last decades or centuries. The objects in synchronous orbit 22,000 miles up - probably aren’t going anywhere for a few epochs.
The obvious important point is the lowest point of the orbit, where the object will experience the most drag.
What really kills me about this issue is, how much mass you can put into orbit is the fundamental limit for everything we want to do up there. And there’s all this mass just sitting there, ready to be salvaged…