As a result of man-made space flights, space has been polluted with metal debris fragments, the collision of which with operating satellites can lead to catastrophic consequences. In order to prevent such a collision, researchers of Center of Applied Astronomy of Byurakan Observatory named after Victor Hambardzumyan of NAS RA together with Russian company "Astronomical Center" are conducting near-Earth space monitoring.
This work is led by Hayk Harutyunyan, a leading researcher at Byurakan Observatory named after Victor Hambardzumyan of NAS RA, PhD in physical and mathematical sciences. According to him, as of 2021, about 130 million objects with a size of 0.1-1.0 cm have orbited the Earth. The number of objects larger than 10 cm reaches 34 thousand, out of which 23 thousand are the closest to the Earth.
"The collision of these fragments with operating and even more controlled satellites can lead to catastrophic consequences. In order to be able to avoid such collisions, it is necessary to know the trajectories of movement of as many fragments as possible. In that case, there is an opportunity to avoid a collision," Hayk Harutyunyan said.
February 16, 2023 at 15:40