A satellite’s demise shows how important it is to keep space clean

LOS ANGELES — Space is vast. But the area around our planet is getting crowded.

New technologies and the proliferation of competing rocket companies have made it cheaper to reach low Earth orbit. But more objects in space can also mean more spacecraft-damaging collisions. That could jeopardize satellites that connect rural and underserved areas with broadband, as well as those that take images that help farmers track their crops’ health. It even could endanger the International Space Station, its astronauts and research aboard that could fuel cancer treatments and the creation of organs for transplant.

A too-cluttered sky could also get in astronomers’ way of learning more about the cosmos. And surrounding Earth with a continually denser layer of outmoded junk means that eventually there wouldn’t be room for the new, useful satellites of the future.

That’s why three engineers were out in Joshua Tree in the middle of the night last week. They’re part of a team exploring a possible solution: a device that would help satellite owners clean up after themselves.

Their goal that night? To track the impending fiery demise of a small satellite.

Alchemy — the name of the satellite soon to face its doom — was built by El Segundo-based Millennium Space Systems, a division of Boeing Co., to test a technology that would help drag spacecraft lower into the atmosphere to burn up after the craft’s mission is complete.

Alchemy was launched in November with its twin, Augury, which will serve as  the control, demonstrating how much longer Alchemy would hang around as space junk without the new tech dragging it further down into the atmosphere. The program running this experiment has a tongue-in-cheek name: Dragracer.

“It’s definitely an appropriate name,” said Patrick Kelly, the Dragracer program manager. “They’re racing back to Earth. One has a very clear advantage over the other.”

Currently, long-dead satellites, spent rocket bodies and other pieces of outdated spacecraft float in orbit for years. There are about 23,000 pieces of space debris larger than a softball circling the planet, according to NASA. Objects that are too small to be tracked also pose a threat. NASA estimates there are 500,000 marble-sized pieces of junk in Earth’s orbit, along with more than 100 million that are 1 millimeter or smaller.

Joining that party are hordes of new satellites. Companies such as SpaceX and OneWeb have started launching satellites to low Earth orbit for broadband internet networks that are meant to provide connectivity worldwide, especially in areas that can’t  be easily reached with fiber cables or cell towers. When complete, OneWeb’s “constellation” is set to comprise more than 600 satellites. SpaceX’s will be made of thousands.

“The rate at which we’re launching is increasing exponentially and is proposed to increase five- to tenfold over the coming decade,” said Timiebi Aganaba, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society. “We don’t want to raise alarm by saying it’s so, so terrible, but the thing is, it potentially could be so, so terrible if we don’t do anything about ensuring that people think more sustainably about how to do space activities.”

More space junk means the potential for more collisions, which in turn create more junk. Already, the International Space Station has had to maneuver itself to avoid debris 29 times since 1999, including three times last year alone. Even tiny objects can be a huge problem — space shuttle windows have had to be replaced because of damage caused by paint flecks whizzing through space and hitting them.

Astronomers fear the clutter could hurt optical astronomy and the cultural relationship people have with dark skies. Countries that dream of launching spacecraft for the first time may not have room to operate.

And there are now questions about whether space should be considered a human environment and thus subject to environmental laws.