During the early days of the world’s space program, early spacecraft faced little threat of collision with orbiting man-made objects. With the burgeoning interest in space from around the globe, nations and private parties are increasing the material that is placed in orbit.

While some objects will de-orbit, either through human intervention, or natural decay, a major contributor to this dilemma has been break-up of objects. To date, more than 200 breakups and 60 collision events have occurred in which debris objects have multiplied from an orbiting object. Many more will occur beyond the writing of this narrative. Breakups can result from explosions to collisions to detonations to failure events. The causes of approximately 22% of observed breakups are unknown.

As of August 2021, more than 330 million pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm (0.4 in), about 1 million pieces from 1-10 cm, and around 36,500 pieces larger than 10 cm were estimated to be in orbit around the Earth.[1]

An even greater challenge to detect and catalog objects exists in High Earth Orbit. At distances at or above geocentric orbits above the altitude of geosynchronous orbit 35, 786 km (22,240 miles). It is presently not possible to track smaller objects (<1m) with accuracy, and it is difficult to make timely adjustments to existing spacecraft for collision avoidance.

GuardianSat™ provides solutions to these challenges.

[1] Space debris by the numbers. (2021). European Space Agency. https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers