Researchers who have done the math say the risk of debris from rockets hitting aircraft, while still low, is only going to increase. "The consequences could be catastrophic," the researchers said in the study published in Scientific Reports, suggesting a collision involving a commercial flight and space junk could result in mass casualties. The study points out that the number of trackable objects in orbit has doubled in the past decade, per CBS News, while the number of daily flights has almost doubled since 2000. Nearly every week, a large reentry takes place.
High-density areas around major airports have an 0.8% chance per year of being affected by an uncontrolled reentry, the study reports. It's 26% in "larger but still busy" airspace areas like those in the northeastern US or around major cities in Asia. The study by researchers connected to the University of British Columbia stuck to rocket bodies because their large size makes them especially dangerous. Scientific American puts the number of objects launched into space overall at 200 a decade ago and 2,600 now, pointing out that the heavy traffic means the International Space Station often has to adjust its orbit to stay clear of debris.
Sustainable space practices are needed to prevent orbital space from becoming unusable, writes Moriba Jah, a space environmentalist, in Scientific American. That would put such services as GPS mapping, the internet, and Earth monitoring at risk. Both pieces find uncontrolled reentries—in which kaput satellites and rocket stages are left to burn up in the atmosphere—to be part of the problem that could be addressed. They add to atmospheric pollution and falling debris. "Uncontrolled rocket body reentries are a design choice, not a necessity," the study says. "If controlled reentries were used by all operators, the risks to people and aircraft would be greatly reduced." (More scientific study stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
