A new study indicates that the threat of space junk is becoming increasingly serious for air travel, with two discarded rockets re-entering Earth's atmosphere weekly. Researchers from the University of British Columbia highlight a one-in-four chance that space debris could fall through busy commercial airspace annually, particularly in regions like the northern US and Europe. This poses risks of airport closures and flight disruptions. The study underscores growing concerns about safety, amidst recent airplane disasters, signaling the urgent need to manage space debris risks in air travel operations.
The recent explosion of a SpaceX Starship shortly after launch demonstrated the challenges of having to suddenly close airspace.
Airspaces in the northern US, Europe and around major cities in the Asia-Pacific are most at risk of uncontrolled re-entries.
Researchers warn that discarded rockets and degraded satellites in orbit have a one-in-four chance of falling back to Earth through busy commercial airspace each year.
There is a roughly one in 430,000 chance of space junk colliding with a plane mid-air in high-risk regions.
Collection
[
|
...
]