How humanity is going to get rid of space debris?
The historic launch of the Sputnik-1 spacecraft in October 1957 was a breakthrough for the whole humanity, but it also became the first-ever piece of man-made space debris in our orbit. Since then, the number of objects entering orbit has continued to grow rapidly. According to Space Situational Awareness, at the moment there may be more than 29 thousand "spent" spacecraft, upper stages of launch vehicles, and booster stages swirling around the planet.
In 2020, a record number of satellites entered orbit - 1,263 - which makes the use of near-Earth space more dangerous due to the threat of a collision of operating spacecraft with man-made debris.
At the moment, different methods of solving the problem are being considered. One approach involves the reuse of individual parts of launch vehicles. Others involve changes in orbits or the destruction of possibly dangerous objects of space debris...
