The European Space Agency (ESA) warns of increasing dangers posed by space debris, with over 130 million pieces currently in orbit. Each year, one satellite is damaged by collisions, which could affect essential services like GPS and environmental monitoring, especially as the number of commercial launches rises. ESA highlights that avoidance maneuvers not only jeopardize satellites but also impact the International Space Station. In response, ESA established a Zero Debris Charter to address the growing threat of space junk and initiated collaboration with several nations.
"We depend on satellites as a source of information for our daily life from navigation to telecommunications to services, to Earth observation including defense and security."
"A one-centimeter piece of debris has the energy of a hand grenade," said Tiago Soares, underscoring the potential destruction collisions can cause.
"The problem of debris is straightforward: Earth's orbit is getting more crowded as more satellites arrive without dead technology being removed."
ESA called for swift action to clean up human-made junk usually fragments of spacecraft or decommissioned satellites.
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