Orbital debris growing exponentially: Airbus' Head of Space Systems

The countries and companies need to wake up and come together to clear debris in orbits over earth as it is growing exponentially and the current situation is very worrying, said Jean-Marc Nasr, Head of Space Systems, Airbus Defence and Space.

Toulouse (France):The countries and companies need to wake up and come together to clear debris in orbits over earth as it is growing exponentially and the current situation is very worrying, said Jean-Marc Nasr, Head of Space Systems, Airbus Defence and Space, on Wednesday.

"There are 34,000 pieces of debris (each) of size more than 10 cm already in the orbit. There are 1 million pieces of debris (each) of size more than 1 cm already in the orbit, cohabiting with our 5,000 satellites. This is exponentially growing," he said here during Airbus Summit 2021. "I think humans should try to avoid to do to space what we did to our oceans," Nasr stated.

According to US space agency NASA, orbital debris is any human-made object in orbit about the earth that no longer serves a useful function. Such debris includes nonfunctional spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages. Nasr stated: "At the moment, I am very worried by what is happening...There are some regulations (on orbital debris) but are they followed by all countries? Not sure."

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He emphasised the need for a global planetary agreement to make orbital space the "good of mankind" so that it can be protected. He called for Europe to lead this effort and make sure all other nations are following this.

"What keeps me awake at night is if something goes really wrong, and if space becomes territory of hostile acts between countries, and we start to destroy satellites -- voluntarily or not -- you create massive debris in the orbits and they becomes unusable for more than 50 years," he noted. At the moment, the orbital debris is still manageable and Airbus is investing in new technologies to monitor and look where it is and then remove it, Nasr mentioned.

Airbus is doing what it can do to help the situation but nobody can do this alone, he added. "We have to do it together. If we don't do it together, it is the end of what we can do it in space. And if it is an end of what we can do in space, it means that we can not observe our planet any longer. It is really a call for wake up for everyone," he noted.

PTI