The sky may look clear from our perspective, but just out of sight, there is a junkyard in our… low earth orbit (LEO), a region of space relatively close to the surface of our planet. There are approximately 60,363 tracked objects in orbit, the vast majority of which are space debris. That number doesn’t even include the more than one hundred million objects too small to be tracked. Some speculate there are more than 8,000 metric tons of debris floating around, including non-functioning satellites, discarded rocket parts, and broken pieces of spacecraft.
Satellites operating in our low Earth orbit are vital to our global infrastructure, and with debris hurtling through space at nearly seven times the speed of a bullet, even the smallest impact can create a big problem. This is an issue that interests us all – here's how United States Space Force He is working to address it.
Space may seem almost infinite, but our orbit is finite. Since there are no international laws for cleaning up debris, the responsibility must be shared. The U.S. Space Force is doing its part and working to keep our planet safe.
