Space Debris

Three pieces of space junk found in Australia have been linked to a mission by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the country’s space agency said. “The agency has confirmed the debris is from a SpaceX mission and continues to engage with our counterparts in the U.S., as well as other parts of…

Illustration of debris reentering. Image: PaulFleet via Getty Images ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs. Rocket debris from two different orbital missions has come crashing down to Earth in recent weeks, ending up in rural Australia and off the coast of the Philippines,…

Remnants of a Chinese rocket launched last week hurtled back into Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday, prompting a stern rebuke from the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) over how Beijing handles its space junk. The Chinese Manned Space Agency said in a post on Weibo that most of…

By NASA July 30, 2022 A Long March-5B Y3 rocket blasting off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of the southern island province of Hainan. Credit: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator released this statement Saturday, July 30 regarding debris from the Chinese…

NASA Administrator Statement on Chinese Space Debris...Read More

Spaceflight, despite its origins in cold war saber-rattling, is often portrayed as a purely beneficial endeavor that somehow helps all of humanity: Satellites provide invaluable planet-scale situational awareness and connectivity. Space telescopes and interplanetary probes deliver transformative discoveries about our place in the universe. Astronautical missions help satisfy our species’…

Home News Spaceflight China's Long March 5B rocket launches the new Wentian module of the Tiangong space station to Earth orbit on Sunday, July 24. (Image credit: CGTN) The newest piece of big Chinese space junk will fall back to Earth around the end of the month, experts predict. The…

SPACE SMASH Charlotte Edwards, Senior Technology and Science Reporter22:22, 20 Jul 2022Updated: 22:31, 20 Jul 2022NASA'S $10billion James Webb Space Telescope has suffered damage after a meteoroid struck its mirrors. The US space agency was aware of the impact in May but has just released a paper and images. 2…

Home News Spaceflight Artist's illustration of space junk orbiting Earth. (Image credit: NASA) It's only a matter of time before someone is killed by falling space junk. The toll taken by space debris so far includes an Indonesian livestock pen's fence crushed by a stray fuel tank, a house in…

The accumulation of junk which is damaging to the environment isn’t only a problem here on Earth: it’s also a problem in space. Every year more and more discarded rocket stages, broken satellites, and other bits of debris are put into orbit around our planet, and not all of them…