There’s been a huge increase in the number of satellites orbiting Earth with private companies and governments planning to launch hundreds more. Near-Earth orbit is already crowded, and the risks posed by space junk are increasing. The consequences could be catastrophic.
Nov 2021
Épisode 69 : Explosion d'un satellite, la véritable guerre des étoiles
Tous aux abris ! Les sept astronautes qui viennent de prendre place à bord de la Station spatiale internationale, ont été accueillis avec la destruction d'un satellite russe, dont les débris sont passés tout près de leur position. Après plus de 70 ans à lancer des satellites, le ... Show More
14m 4s
Jan 2020
Space Junk: How Cluttered Is The Final Frontier?
Since the dawn of Sputnik in 1957, space-faring nations have been filling Earth's orbit with satellites. Think GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications satellites. But as those have increased, so, too, has space junk. On today's show, we talk about the first mission to clean ... Show More
11m 20s
Apr 2023
Launching Into Space — Sustainably!
In 1957, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Since then, the number of objects humans have hurled toward the stars has soared to the thousands. As those objects have collided with one another, they've created more space debris in Earth' ... Show More
12m 54s
Aug 2022
Satellites versus the stars
If you look up into the night sky, there are around 7,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth. They’re part of our daily life – essential for things like the internet, the GPS in our cars and giving us weather reports. Seven thousand might not sound a lot in the infinite expanse ... Show More
28m 6s
Dec 2017
To Fix the Space Junk Problem, Add a Self-Destruct Module
Humans have gotten pretty good at launching stuff into space—but way less good at getting stuff back down. Up in lower Earth orbit, along with a thousand-plus productive satellites, there are many more slackers: space junk, cosmic trash, garbage of the highest-orbiting order.
6m 44s
Apr 2022
Space junk – how should we clean up our act?
This week, the US became the first country to ban anti-satellite missile tests, in an effort to protect Earth’s orbit from dangerous space debris. There could be millions of pieces of old satellites and spent rockets zooming around above our atmosphere, at speeds where collisions ... Show More
13m 23s