Space junk – or Space Debris as it’s usually known – is  a growing problem that has no easy fix.

The problem is that all satellite launches produce some small degree of debris. This could be from separation pins that keep various parts of a satellite together during launch, and then allows them to separate after orbit delivery or it could be from the aluminium power that is present in some types of propellant.

Even though there have been various international treaties to limit the growth of these objects, the rate of growth continues to escalate.

Why is this dangerous? Far from just objects floating weightless in space, all debris (and Earth orbitting satellites) travel at some multiplier of the speed of a bullet. When they collide, they make a mess. If two pieces of debris collide, then they make more debris – smaller and harder to track. If debris hits a functioning satellite, then it either loses some level of functionality – or becomes a new entry in the space debris catalogue.

Now China has decided to create some of its own debris, by firing a missile at an ageing weather satellite. That they did this in order to show the world its technical prowess is possible, but it definitely showed the world how not to make friends and influence people. The 600+ new junk items just add to the growing headache that satellite designers, owners and operators have to put up with (adding more shielding against impacts, reducing the mass that can be employed for useful payloads, reducing the probability of a satellite loss and the inflating the cost of insurance premiums)….