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ORBITING JUNK
Dear HIW,
As there’s so much space debris, why aren’t spacecraft hit by something and disabled? It seems there would be a high chance of this, but in practice it doesn’t seem to happen!
Stephen Conn
Debris accumulates as space exploration continues
There are over 27,000 pieces of space junk being monitored. To prevent collisions, the Department of Defense tracks them via numerous sensors that make up the Space Surveillance Network. Space debris can be both artificial and natural. The latter orbits the Sun, while human-made debris usually orbits Earth. This includes nonfunctional spacecraft and stages from launch vehicles. Space junk can travel at 17,500 miles per hour, so even relatively small fragments can cause significant damage. To protect the International Space Station (ISS) and the crew on board, flight rules are put in
place. These state how close a piece of tracked space junk can be from the ISS before the chance of collision is high enough to warrant evacuation.