Bi-Weekly IIHE Internal Seminar: Elisa Pinat, "Space Junk: what goes up doesn't always come down"

Tuesday 5 Nov 2013, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Brussels

Large Seminar Room (Universe)

Space activities in Earth orbit are crucial to our civilization and orbiting spacecraft serve vital roles in many fields. Natural debris, such as small bits of cometary ice or rock, pose a non negligible hazard to this instrumentation. There is however another component that poses a stronger hazard: the one due to human activities in space. Indeed, as a result of space activity, an enormous amount of debris has been left orbiting in space: payloads, upper stages and associated mission-related objects. Improving in the understanding of the space debris environment is essential for future safe use of space and to minimize the potential hazard of these objects to operational instrumentation.