Where is the only spaceship cemetery located and what does it look like? Not only on Earth

Where do you think the old satellites and space stations go? It turns out that there is a special place on Earth where all this space debris is “buried”.

The question of how to safely dispose of spacecraft arose before scientists in the late 60s of the last century. It was necessary to find a zone on the globe that is as far as possible from people, so that even if the calculations turn out to be incorrect or something goes wrong and the spacecraft descending to the ground drifts away from the calculated point, it would not pose a threat to people . Accordingly, there should have been no inhabited areas in this zone and ships should not have sailed through it.

Such a place was found in the Pacific Ocean. It is located between Australia, South America and Antarctica at coordinates 48°52.6′ south latitude and 123°23.6′ west longitude. Point Nemo - this is how beautifully and metaphorically the place where the remains of spaceships find their final refuge is named after the character of Jules Verne.

Point Nemo is separated from the nearest island by 2,688 kilometers. Antarctica is located at almost the same distance from it, New Zealand is 100 km more, and South America is even more than 3 thousand kilometers away.

Navigation in this area is formally prohibited, however, ships from Chile and New Zealand sometimes sail into the zone. In order not to endanger them, owners of spacecraft must notify the authorized services of these countries about the time and approximate location of the fall of the remains of satellites and rockets.

The first spacecraft was dropped at Point Nemo in 1971. Over 46 years of such space debris, a whole collection has accumulated there - more than 300 exhibits. Moreover, until 2015, this number was only 161 devices, that is, it was in recent years that the spaceship cemetery began to be truly actively used.

Russia holds the record for the amount of buried space debris. Under the thickness of the ocean waves, the remains of 145 Russian Progress ships, six Salyuts and the Mir space station found peace. For comparison, the Japanese presence here is limited to four HTV space trucks.

Skylab sank on July 11, 1979 Photo: NASA

It would seem that the spaceship graveyard would be a wonderful diving site. Many travelers would sell their souls for the opportunity to visit such an exotic attraction. However, you will not find a single photograph of a spaceship cemetery on the Internet, and even if there were any, it would hardly impress anyone. The fact is that Point Nemo is a conventional coordinate; in fact, the remains of spacecraft are scattered over an area covering an area of more than 17 million square kilometers.

Even if you are lucky enough to stumble upon one of the bodies buried here, you are unlikely to be able to make out anything even remotely resembling a spacecraft in the fragments that have flown to Earth. The fact is that most of the devices do not have thermal protection and almost completely burn out when entering the atmosphere. Thus, only refractory structural elements reach the ocean.

Only the largest specimens have a chance to reach the Earth in their original form. The most significant inhabitant of the “cemetery” is the 143-ton Mir station, which served faithfully for 15 years and was retired in 2001. When it entered the dense layers of the atmosphere, the station fell apart into six main fragments, which scattered in different directions and ended up hundreds of kilometers apart.

"Mir" sank on March 23, 2001 Photo: NASA

The spaceship cemetery, as already mentioned, has been used tens of times more actively in recent years than before. This is due to the constantly increasing number of artificial Earth satellites. Their number at the moment is already about 4 thousand, and if they are not removed from Earth’s orbit, then there is a high probability that they will begin to collide with each other. And this is already a huge threat, similar to the one depicted in the movie “Gravity,” where flying space debris completely destroyed several space stations.

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In the Pacific Ocean there is a unique natural formation - the Truk (or Chuuk) lagoon. About 10 million ago there was a large island here, but over time it sank under water.

During World War II, a large Japanese naval base and airfield were located on the islands around the lagoon. In 1944, the ships of the 4th Imperial Fleet and the command of the 6th Submarine Fleet were in Truk Lagoon, but on February 17, 1944, the Americans began the military operation "Hilston", as a result of which more than 30 large and many small Japanese ships were sunk.

We go down to the depths to look at the underwater ship graveyard in the Pacific Ocean.

This is what our hotel “Blue Lagoon Resort” looked like, which is located on the island of Dublon. The houses we live in are very reminiscent of the standard houses from the first Far Cry. So it seems. that a guy in a red Hawaiian shirt is about to jump out from behind the palm trees and start killing everyone here. And somewhere here, nearby, there must be the skeleton of a Japanese aircraft carrier, then the similarity will be complete:

Fefan Island. You won't confuse him with anyone:

Let's go to the dive site:

Remains of the ship. Wheelhouse and engine telegraph:

In the engine room:

Inscription on board:

Depth 36 meters. Anti-tank guns on the deck of the Nippo Maru, there are 3 of them:

Depth 37 meters. Light Japanese tank at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean:

Depth 25 meters. Cargo-passenger ship Rio de Janeiro Maru. lies on the starboard side. This is the left screw:

Depth 12 meters. View from the pilot's seat of the Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bomber Nakajima B6N "Jill":

Depth 36 meters. Another Jill plane:

Sunken Japanese ship Shinkoku Maru, On the navigation bridge:

Isuzu truck in the hold of the ship Shinkoku Maru. Only the front half of the ship remained, the rear part was destroyed by the explosion of an American bomb:

The cargo boom of the ship Shinkoku Maru is covered with soft corals:

The fuselage of the Claude fighter is the predecessor of the famous Zero in the hold of the sunken Japanese ship Fujikawa Maru:

The ship Fujikawa Maru. The calling card of Truk Lagoon is a creepy air compressor in a turning workshop:

The week of diving in Truk Lagoon has come to an end. About 10 sunken ships and two aircraft were examined. This is the sunset of the last evening on Dublon Island, Truk Lagoon.

East of the coast of New Zealand, several thousand kilometers inland in the Pacific Ocean lies one of the most incredible landfills in the world. Hidden from the eyes of people, the trash can is surrounded only by the turbulent currents of the ocean, and there is not a single island nearby. At the bottom, at a depth of 4 km, lurks a whole field of broken fragments of old satellites, long out of commission. This is the “Spaceship Graveyard”, where space agencies from all over the world send their decommissioned satellites and aircraft on their final journey.

When a satellite or orbital station reaches the end of its service life, there are two different ways to develop a scenario for removing spent equipment from its place of operation. If the satellite's orbit is too high, as is the case with geosynchronous spacecraft, engineers send space scrap metal further into the sky into a garbage disposal orbit, where all too massive structures are sent. This orbit is several hundred kilometers from the farthest trajectory of controlled satellites. This distance was chosen in order to reduce to zero the likelihood of a collision between decommissioned spacecraft and still functioning equipment.

For satellites that operate too close to Earth, it is much easier to do the opposite. If the satellite is small enough, it will burn up on its own in the Earth's atmosphere, as happens to hundreds of meteors every day. But if the station is quite large, and there is a chance that it will not completely burn up in the Earth's atmosphere during the fall, its decommissioning requires careful planning.

The old satellite has to be accompanied all the way to the water, directed to a strictly defined zone in order to avoid a collision with land and especially with human habitats. Space agencies have a responsibility to ensure that outdated technology does not cause accidents or injuries to civilians.

Known as Point Nemo, the spaceship graveyard is the location in the ocean farthest from any existing landmass. This location got its name in honor of the well-known hero of Jules Verne’s book about Captain Nemo. From Latin, this name translates as “no one,” which is perfect for such a remote and isolated place. Point Nemo lies approximately 2,688 km from the three closest islands - Ducie Atoll in the north, Easter Island (or Motu Nui) in the northeast, and Maher Island in the south. Another name for this place is the oceanic pole of inaccessibility. Point Nemo received this status for its maximum distance from all sea routes in the Pacific Ocean. The cruising of sea ships is simply prohibited here.

In addition to the fact that the space dump is located at a decent distance from people, it is also practically safe for the marine inhabitants of the region. And this is great, because no one would want decommissioned “pieces of iron” to destroy the local ecosystem. How is this possible in the ocean? It's simple - Point Nemo is located in the southern waters of the great Pacific Gyre, which is a large circular sea current. A powerful gyre draws in all household waste from the nearest coastal waters in the area. For this reason, Point Nemo is practically uninhabited by marine life and has become a kind of oceanic desert, which is also called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Naturally, scientists at one time considered this area an ideal place for space exploration and disposal of spent satellites and waste from space expeditions.

From 1971 to 2016, more than 263 official space debris disposal sites have been held at Point Nemo. Most often, unmanned trucks from the International Space Station are sunk here. The ISS itself will eventually be buried in this landfill when its service life comes to an end. The approximate date is 2028, but there is a possibility of extending the life of this space object.

ISS. Photo: NASA

The most grandiose funeral at Point Nemo took place on March 23, 2001, when, after 15 years of service, the 135-ton Russian space station Mir was immersed in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. During deorbit, Mir entered our atmosphere at a distance of 100 km from Earth. Even in such rarefied air, the station lost some of its fragments at the beginning of its dying journey. For example, the solar panels fell off the World almost immediately. And 90 km from the surface of the ocean, the spacecraft fell apart into several parts, and fragments burning in the atmosphere were visible in the evening sky even from the Fiji Islands. By the time it entered the water, only 20-25 tons of structures remained from the World.

So if you imagined a space graveyard as a platform covered with satellites and orbital stations gracefully rising above the bottom, you will be disappointed. The remains of these high-tech devices were scattered over hundreds and thousands of kilometers in small parts. When the World broke up into fragments in the atmosphere, it left a trail of debris 1500 km long and 100 km wide.

Even with the best-planned management of space station sinking, it will never be a seamless landing, said Holger Krag, head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) space waste office. The nature of the destruction of such structures requires experts to prepare a fairly large area for the burial of the satellite. The fragments will never fall in the same place.

That's why Point Nemo is the best choice. Located 2,688 km from any nearest land, it gives space design engineers a fairly wide safety net. This is very important in case of errors in the calculations of possible trajectories of falling remains.

Mir space station

An automated cargo spacecraft (ARV) named Jules Verne, developed by ESA, disintegrates in the Earth's atmosphere on September 29, 2008 over the uninhabited Pacific Ocean southwest of Tahiti. Photo: NASA.

Like any other machine, space satellites and stations do not last forever - regardless of their job is to collect climate data, provide communications or conduct scientific research operations, they eventually become obsolete and break down, just like ordinary vacuum cleaners or washing machines. cars. When this happens, they fall to the ground, but where is the graveyard of dead spaceships?

The fall of such devices is controlled by man, and most of the “dying” satellites end up, oddly enough, in one place in the world, which bears the mysterious name Point Nemo. According to NASA representatives, this mass burial site for obsolete spacecraft is closest to New Zealand and Argentina, but in reality it is the most remote point in the world from any populated area. And, of course, Point Nemo is just a section of the world’s oceans, or rather the Pacific. Also called the “Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility” and the “Uninhabited Region of the Pacific Ocean,” this graveyard of dead satellites is located approximately 4,000 km from the nearest land. Its exact coordinates are also known - 48 degrees 52.6 minutes south latitude and 123 degrees 23.6 minutes west longitude.

These are great depths (approximately 3 km), which are mainly inhabited by sponges, whales, perches and octopuses. Probably, these dark sea waters envelop the spaceships that have fallen in them with the same blue shroud as the space of outer space.

And as mentioned above, spacecraft falling into Point Nemo are closely watched. In order for the satellite to “retire” where needed, space agencies must manage this process, removing the “dying” device from orbit in a timely manner. Small satellites, of course, do not reach the earth, being destroyed in the atmosphere. But larger ones and initially located in low orbits do not burn up completely, and their remains end up at Point Nemo.

According to official data, between 1971 and mid-2016, global space agencies sent something like 260 spacecraft to the “uninhabited region of the Pacific Ocean.” These included 4 Japanese HTV cargo ships, 5 ESA robotic cargo ships, 140 Russian transport ships and satellites, including the Mir station (in 2001), several European Space Agency cargo ships, and even one SpaceX rocket .

Sometimes, however, failures occur. In particular, the 8.5-ton Chinese space station Tiangong-1, launched in 2011, left the control of the Chinese agency in March 2016, and is now lost somewhere in the depths of space. It is assumed that at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 it will clearly decide to fall to the ground, starting to decline at a speed of 290 km/h. And she is unlikely to hit Point Nemo. But, according to experts, there is no need to be afraid of such a giant falling in the middle of our field or city.

“Most parts of space stations and satellites burn up during the fall. For example, from the huge 143-ton Mir station, after passing through all layers of the atmosphere, only 20 tons remained,” they reassure.

And, it seems, their words are indeed true, because during the entire space race of mankind, only one case has been recorded in which a person was injured, and even then extremely insignificantly, by the fall of a part of a device arriving from space. This person was a woman from Oklahoma, walking along a dirt path in the middle of the endless corn fields of the American state. In fact, a small falling piece of the satellite barely grazed her shoulder, mostly scaring her rather than physically harming her.

However, Point Nemo is not the only resting place for dead spaceships. In fact, there are two such places, and the second is located far in space. Back in 1993, all the world's space agencies agreed on general rules for the disposal of dead spacecraft either in the “watery grave” of the Pacific Ocean or in the so-called “graveyard orbit” located far from Earth. It is located approximately 36,000 km above the earth and 322 km from the nearest operating satellites and stations. And this method of recycling obsolete devices is preferred to be used much more often.

Spaceship Graveyard in the Pacific

There is a place in the Pacific Ocean - the so-called Point Nemo, where spent spaceships and stations end their lives. When their service life is completed, space agencies remove them from orbit and send them straight into the ocean.

Point Nemo was not chosen by chance. It is equidistant from the nearest inhabited islands by approximately 2.7 thousand kilometers.

The place can be called an oceanic desert, since this area is closed to navigation. In addition, in this part of the Pacific Ocean there is a circular current - a giant funnel that sucks in all the debris. There is also relatively little marine life here.

The most grandiose funeral was the sinking of the Mir orbital station in 2001. After 15 years in low-Earth orbit, the station was sunk at Point Nemo. Of the original 135 tons, no more than 25 tons reached the ocean surface - the rest burned up in the atmosphere. Interestingly, the International Space Station will be buried nearby after 2028.