Page 7 - Trashing the Planet: Examining Our Global Garbage Glut

satellite breakup represents the most prolific and serious fragmentation in
the course of 50 years of space operations.”
MOVING TARGET

Johnson noted that the debris from the Chinese test threatened the
International Space Station (ISS), the largest artificial structure in orbit.
Aerospace companies built sections of the station on Earth, and space
shuttles carried them into orbit. Astronauts assembled the sections in space.
The first section of the ISS went into space in 1998.
At a cost of $150 billion to build and maintain through 2015, the ISS is
one of the most complex and expensive items ever made by human hands.
Astronauts use the station as a research laboratory. At any given time, the
crew consists of three to six astronauts and scientists from several nations,
including the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, and the
United Kingdom.
Space junk has hit the ISS numerous times, but the damage has so far
been minor. For instance, in May 2016, a flake of orbiting paint smashed
into one of the craft’s 2-inch-thick (5 cm) windows. In a photo tweeted
by British astronaut Tim Peake, a tiny crack on the surface of the window
glass is obvious.
The ISS is the most heavily shielded spacecraft ever flown. Bumpers
made of layers of metal and bulletproof fabric protect important ISS
components, such as its living compartments and high-pressure oxygen
tanks. The multilayer shields are designed to deflect or absorb the impact of
small particles of space junk.
The bumpers offer little protection against larger objects, however.
A piece of debris the size of a baseball could blast the ISS into pieces.
Controllers on the ground monitor space junk, and if they see debris headed
toward the ISS, the crew maneuvers the station out of its way. If the chance
of collision is strong, the crew retreats to a Soyuz space capsule docked at
the ISS. The Russian-built Soyuz can carry the crew back to Earth in about
three and a half hours in an emergency.

SPACE JUNK 85