Since the inception of satellites and human spaceflight, humanity has come to rely heavily on space, but in so doing, it has also produced particles of trash, which number in the hundreds of thousands and whiz around the Earth at over 17,000 miles per hour. For the moment, tracking and avoidance maneuvers have been sufficient to protect Earth’s orbit from becoming severely limited or unusable, but unless cleaned up, these particles of space junk continue to threaten space assets, and could even make space almost unusable if new objects are hit and more clouds of debris added. The Cipher Brief’s Fritz Lodge spoke with Director General of the European Space Agency, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, about the ways in which the world can come together to solve this global problem.
The Cipher Brief: In your mind, how serious is the threat posed to space security and sustainability by space debris?
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