Spaceship Graveyard: where all space debris from orbit falls. Where on earth is the spaceship graveyard located?

In this part Pacific Ocean There is not a single island for many miles around, and people never come here. Airliners do not fly here, swimming is prohibited sea vessels, and only the inhabitants depths of the sea are silent witnesses former greatness. This is a cemetery spaceships, or point Nemo.

Space and scientific research, the operation of navigation instruments, communications and weather forecasting is carried out due to the constant presence aircraft in low-Earth orbit. These are space stations and artificial satellites of the Earth, which belong to the leading space powers of the planet. But that's it technical means have a limited service life, after which they become space debris.

And here the question arises about recycling used equipment. In order to get rid of all the space debris that rotates in orbit, one would have to spend a colossal amount of money. Moreover, from a technical point of view this is not always feasible. But large objects, such as spent space stations, have to be removed from orbit in an organized manner. Firstly, they pose a threat to other spacecraft, and secondly, they can fall to Earth if they leave orbit.

Most meteorites that reach our planet burn up in dense layers atmosphere. Because of high speed and aerodynamic resistance that arise upon contact with the atmosphere, heating and combustion of everything that approaches the Earth occurs. This also applies to technical devices that have expired. But if small and structurally lightweight satellites burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere without a residue, large objects with refractory elements do not burn up completely and reach the Earth.

It was precisely for such equipment that it was decided to create a spaceship cemetery - a special place where the remains of space debris would land. It is used by all space powers that deorbit their aircraft. This place is located in the South Pacific Ocean, and the nearest landmass - Dusi Atoll - is almost 2,700 kilometers away. Easter Island, which is located east of the spaceship graveyard, is approximately the same distance. Interestingly, the nearest inhabited place is the International space station, which is located at an altitude of “only” 400 km.

Of course, there is not a single station or satellite here that sank unchanged; these are always heavily charred remains of structures. The Russian Mir station, flooded in 2001, found its last refuge here, more than 140 cargo ships Progress, as well as cargo ships owned by Japan and the European Space Agency. IN total here, at a depth of about 4 kilometers, lie the remains of more than 260 spacecraft that were subject to disposal. They also plan to scuttle the current International Space Station, whose operational life will come to an end in 2028.

It is noteworthy that during the deorbit of the spent Mir station, residents of Australia, Japan and the Fiji Islands were advised to stay in shelters. And such foresight is not at all accidental: in the entire history of the operation of this space waste site, there have been two cases when the deorbiting of aircraft took place in emergency mode. In 1979, the remains of the American space station Skylab landed in Australia, and in 1991, some parts of the Soviet Salyut 7 fell in Argentina.

According to experts, the location for the spaceship cemetery was chosen most optimally from the point of view of the impact on the ocean ecology. The currents of the South Pacific Ocean converge at this point, forming a whirlpool in the water column and one of the garbage patches on the surface. For this reason, there are few aquatic inhabitants here, and chemical pollution has a compact distribution.

Spaceship Graveyard October 29th, 2017

The most distant point on Earth from land has many names, but it is most often called Point Nemo, or the oceanic pole of inaccessibility. It is located at coordinates 48°52.6 south latitude and 123°23.6 west longitude. The nearest land island is approximately 2,250 kilometers away. Due to its remote location, this place is ideal for the disposal of spacecraft, and therefore space agencies It is often also called the “spaceship cemetery.”

This place is located in the Pacific Ocean and is the most remote from any human civilization point on our planet.

Wreckage of the Mir station

However, Bill Ilor, an aerospace engineer and specialist in spacecraft re-entry, has a different definition for this place:

“This is the best place on the planet to drop something from space without causing any third-party damage.”

In order to “bury” another spacecraft in this cemetery, space agencies need some time to carry out the necessary calculations. As a rule, smaller satellites do not end their lives at the Nemo point because, NASA explains, “the heat created by atmospheric friction to a greater extent destroys a satellite falling at a speed of several thousand kilometers per hour even before it falls. Ta-da! It's like magic. It’s as if there was no satellite!”

It's a different matter for larger objects like Tiangong-1, China's first orbital space station, launched in September 2011, which weighs about 8.5 tons. China lost control of the 12-meter orbiting laboratory in March 2016. The forecasts are disappointing. The station should fall to Earth sometime in early 2018. Where exactly? No one knows yet. The same Aylor, who works for the non-profit organization Aerospace Corporation, says that his company, most likely, will not dare to make forecasts earlier than five days before the station is expected to collapse in the Earth's atmosphere. When this happens, hundreds of kilograms of various metal parts such as the titanium plating of the station, fuel tanks and much more will continue to fall at speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour until they eventually fall to the surface of the planet.

Since China has lost control of the Tiangong-1 station, the country cannot confidently predict whether it will fall into Point Nemo.

Spaceship junkyard

Interestingly, astronauts living aboard the International Space Station are, in fact, closest to this very point of Nemo. The thing is that the ISS circles above the Earth (and in particular above the place we are talking about) at an altitude of about 400 kilometers, while the piece of land closest to Point Nemo is much further away.

According to Popular Science, from 1971 to mid-2016, space agencies from around the world buried at least 260 spacecraft here. At the same time, as the Gizmodo portal notes, the number of scrapped spacecraft has increased sharply since 2015, when they total number was only 161 at that time.

Here, at a depth of more than three kilometers, the Soviet space station Mir, more than 140 Russian cargo spacecraft, several European Space Agency trucks (for example, the first automatic cargo ship "Jules Verne" ATV series) and even one of the rockets found their final resting place SpaceX, according to reports from Smithsonian.com. True, the spacecraft here can hardly be called neatly stacked in one pile. Aylor notes that such large objects, like the Tangun-1 station, can fall apart when falling, covering an area of 1,600 kilometers along and several dozen across. The Nemo point “exclusion” territory itself covers an area of more than 17 million square kilometers, so finding a specific fallen spacecraft here is not as easy as it might seem at first glance.

The European Space Agency's Jules Verne cargo ship breaks apart as it enters the atmosphere. September 29, 2008

Of course, not all spacecraft end up in this cemetery space technology, but chances are that part of the collapsing spacecraft will fall on one of the people, regardless of where this spacecraft will fall on Earth, are very small, notes Aylor.

“Of course, nothing is impossible. However, since the start space age last case, which comes to mind, happened back in 1997. Then in Oklahoma a half-burnt part of a rocket fell on a woman,”- explains Ailor.

The same unburnt piece of a rocket and the woman it fell on

A dead spacecraft can create a much greater danger in orbit.

The real threat of space debris

On at the moment on various heights There are about 4000 people circling the Earth artificial satellites. And there should be even more in the near future. In other words, there are still a lot of different spacecraft in orbit, but soon there will be no crowd at all.

According to statistics from Space-Track.org, in addition to satellites, there are thousands of uncontrolled rocket remains in orbit, as well as more than 12,000 other artificial objects larger than a human fist. And this is if we also omit the countless number of different screws, bolts, pieces of dried paint (from the skin of missiles) and many metal particles.

“Over time, countries began to realize that they were literally littering space and this created a serious threat not only to their systems, but to everyone in general.”, adds Aylor.

The worst thing, according to experts from the same European Space Agency, can happen when two pieces of space debris collide with each other, especially when these objects are large.

Random collisions of the same satellites, although very rare, do occur. The last such incidents were in 1996, 2009 and two in 2013. As a result of such events, as well as as a result of the deliberate destruction of satellites, huge number space debris that poses a threat to other working satellites and the danger of a chain effect.

“We found that this debris can remain in orbit for hundreds of years», - Ailor comments.

To prevent the emergence of new space debris, aging spacecraft must be deorbited over time. Many space agencies, as well as private space companies They are now considering the possibility of creating a special scavenger spacecraft that could capture obsolete satellites and other spacecraft and send them straight to the underwater graveyard of spaceships on Earth.

However, the same Aylor, like some other experts, insists on developing new technologies and methods with which it will be possible to capture, drag and remove the old uncontrolled space debris, which has accumulated in orbit and poses a real threat.

“I proposed something like XPRIZE and Grand Challenge, where we could select the concepts of the three most suitable spacecraft and give grants for their development and subsequent use in cleanup planet orbits», - says Ailor.

Unfortunately, technical difficulties in implementing such plans are far from the first place among the problems when there is such a thing as bureaucracy.

“Technical difficulties are far from the most important thing here. The main problem here is the idea private property. For example, no other nation has the right to touch the same American satellites. If this happened, it could be considered an act of military aggression,”- explains Ailor.

According to Aylor, in the face of a common threat, nations around the world must unite, because this is the only way to effectively solve such problems.

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 to last path their decommissioned satellites and aircraft.

When the life of the satellite or orbital station expires, there are two different ways development of a scenario for the removal of used 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. earth's atmosphere, as happens with 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. WITH Latin language this name translates to “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 everyone sea routes in the Pacific Ocean. plying sea ships It's 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 sea creatures 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 southern waters 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. 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, they almost immediately fell away from the World solar panels. 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 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 space cemetery You will be disappointed with a platform covered with satellites and orbital stations gracefully rising above the bottom. 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 - 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 calculations possible trajectories 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.

The volume of space debris in low-Earth orbit has reached a critical threshold, experts say. It is already becoming dangerous not only for orbiting spacecraft, but for all of us. More than 20 thousand fragments rotate in near-Earth space. NASA started talking about the need to launch a special cleaner into space.

Is it possible to spend in space general cleaning and how can this be done? The editor-in-chief of the magazine "Cosmonautics News" Igor Marinin spoke about this on the air of "Morning of Russia".

The expert noted that the fall of this space debris is practically not dangerous for the Earth. According to him, the panic, which is associated, in particular, with the fall of the American UARS satellite, was provoked by incompetent people. Contrary to fears, the satellite did not fall on someone’s head, but sank safely in the Pacific Ocean far from land. “The likelihood that debris will fall on a populated area is negligible - less than one ten-thousandth of a percent,” Marinin noted.

According to the expert, it cannot be said that the problem of space debris has not been dealt with before. This issue has been raised more than once in the UN and international space organizations. "In 1997, an advisory decision was made that every country that is involved in space activities, cleaned up after herself. For example, garbage cans were simply thrown out of the Mir station. Now nothing is thrown out from the International Space Station,” he said.

However, collecting the debris that is already in orbit is a big problem. You cannot collect these debris with a magnet - the magnet attracts steel alloys, and the debris is mainly duralumin. Japanese experts suggested catching space debris with a net, but this is also not a suitable option - the debris moves in different directions and at different speeds.

In Russia, this issue is not yet considered relevant at all and no funds are being invested in its solution. However, this garbage does not pose a direct threat to the Earth. “Most space debris slowly but surely falls and burns up in the atmosphere. If international laws and declarations are now adopted so that every country involved in space activities undertakes to deal with this debris, then this problem will not be so pressing. All debris will will self-destruct, and new ones will appear less and less,” Marinin concluded.

Spaceship Graveyard- a common name for something closed to navigation southern region The Pacific Ocean is 4 km deep, where the remains of spacecraft end up after they are decommissioned. It is located near Christmas Island,

3900 km from the New Zealand city of Wellington. Most spacecraft burn up in dense layers of the atmosphere, but part of the ship's skin and other parts that did not burn out when they were taken out of orbit fall into this area. Stations and ships that have exhausted their service life with various types of garbage and waste from space expeditions loaded into their compartments are subject to flooding. As a rule, only refractory structural elements reach the water surface. In particular, this area is used by the Mission Control Center (MCC) to scuttle Progress space trucks. The remains of the Mir space station were sunk in this area in 2001. The history of the “cemetery” also includes two emergency incidents, when in 1979 the remains American station Skylabs fell in western Australia, and in 1991, debris from the Russian Salyut 7 station partially scattered in Argentina. Both incidents resulted in no casualties or destruction. In March 2001, during the deorbit of the Mir complex, the authorities of Australia, Japan and the Fiji Islands, located at a very impressive distance from the “cemetery”, recommended their citizens not to go outside, but to stay exclusively in residential buildings, institutions and other shelters. Every year, several dozen spacecraft find their final refuge in the ocean “cemetery.” According to representatives of the Mission Control Center of the Federal Space Agency, “the accepted practice of destroying space debris using ‘trucks’ does not harm the Earth’s ecology.” The area is completely closed to navigation.

The sinking area of space stations and expendable cargo ships removed from Earth orbit, known as the "spaceship graveyard", is located in the Pacific Ocean at the 40th parallel. Southern Hemisphere near Christmas Island, far from shipping routes and populated areas. At the same time, the history of the “cemetery” also includes two emergency incidents: in 1979, the remains of the American Skylab station fell in western Australia, and in 1991, the debris of the Russian Salyut-7 station partially scattered in Argentina. Both incidents resulted in no casualties or destruction. In March 2001, during the deorbit of the Mir complex, the authorities of Australia, Japan and the Fiji islands, located at a very impressive distance from the “cemetery”, recommended their citizens not to go outside, but to stay exclusively in residential buildings and institutions and other shelters.

Stations and ships that have exhausted their service life with various types of garbage and waste from space expeditions loaded into their compartments are subject to flooding. As a rule, only refractory structural elements reach the surface of the water, which then sink to a depth of about 4 kilometers (most of the fragments burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere). Every year, several dozen spacecraft find their final refuge in the ocean “graveyard.” According to representatives of the Mission Control Center of the Federal Space Agency, “the accepted practice of destroying space debris using “trucks” does not harm the Earth’s ecology. Source: http://kvazar.org/showthread.php?t=18136 The final orbit of the Mir station. Debris Mir station over the Pacific Ocean Source: http://www.mir.avia.ru/

The final round of the Mir station.

The wreckage of the Mir station over the Pacific Ocean

Source: http://www.mir.avia.ru/

The first European cargo spacecraft, the Jules Verne, was also sunk in the South Pacific Ocean, in the so-called spaceship graveyard in a given area with coordinates 40 degrees S. and 145 degrees W.D. 2500 km east of New Zealand, 6000 km west of Chile and 2500 km south of French Polynesia, September 29, 2008 at approximately 17:53 Moscow time. Part of the ship's structures burned out in the dense layers of the atmosphere during the removal of the spacecraft from orbit. The ship undocked from the ISS on September 6, after which it was sent to a designated area of the ocean for flooding. Source: http://www.cybersecurity.ru/space/56091.html Photograph of the fall of the ship "Jules Verne": Image source and information about it: http://www.astronet.ru/db/msg/1231393

The autonomous flight of the Progress M-66 cargo spacecraft is ending; on Monday evening the ship will be deorbited and scuttled in a non-navigable area of the Pacific Ocean, a representative of the Mission Control Center told RIA Novosti. The ship was undocked from the station on May 6 and sent on a controlled autonomous flight with scientific purposes. At 14:28:30 UTS, the Progress engines will receive a command to brake, after which the ship will enter the dense layers of the Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up. Fragments of the Progress will splash down in the estimated area of the Pacific Ocean at 15:14:45 UTS. The coordinates of the center of the fall group of unburnt structural elements are 42°34" south latitude and 139°24" west longitude. Source: MCC

Progress M-67, the last one, sunk in the Pacific Ocean space truck with analog control system. The Interfax agency was informed about this by the Mission Control Center. The wreckage of the ship, which did not burn up in the atmosphere, fell far from shipping routes, about three thousand kilometers east of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. On September 21, the truck undocked from the ISS and set off on an autonomous flight, during which it took part in the Plasma-Progress experiment. As part of this experiment, the characteristics of plasma clouds that arise around a spacecraft when its engines operate in low Earth orbit were studied. At the ISS, the expensive Kurs docking equipment was removed from the Progress. The garbage and equipment that had accumulated at the station was loaded on board the ship. Instead of the analog "Progress" of the old series, trucks with a digital control system will be used - more reliable and spacious. Two such ships have already been sent into orbit. The first of them delivered cargo to the ISS in November last year.

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 those closest to it inhabited islands 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.