SPACE DEBRIS INTRODUCTION Space debris is also known as space junk space waste space trash space garbage It is the collection of defunct human made objects in orbit around Earth This includes everything from spent rocket stages old satellites fragments from disintegration erosion and collision Debris poses a growing threat to satellites and prevent the use of valuable orbits in the future Many pieces of debris are too small to monitor but too large to shield satellites against More than 5 00 000 pieces of space debris or space junk are tracked as they orbit the earth They all travel at speeds up to 17 500 mph fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles including international space stations space shuttles and other spacecraft with human aboard Space debris deals with both natural and arti cial particles Natural particles known as meteoroids and arti cial particles are also known as man made particles Natural debris is in orbit about the sun and most of the man made debris is in orbit about the Earth Orbital debris is referred to any man made object in orbit about the Earth which doesn't serve any useful function It includes non functional spacecraft abandoned launch vehicle stages mission related debris and fragmentation debris DEBRIS AT LOW EARTH ORBIT
