Troubled Orbits and Earthly Concerns: Space Debris as a Boundary Infrastructure

Abstract

Like other forms of debris in terrestrial and marine environments, space debris prompts questions about how we can live with the material remains of technological endeavors past and yet to come. Although techno-societies fundamentally rely on space infrastructures, they so far have failed to address the infrastructural challenge of debris. Only very recently has the awareness of space debris as a severe risk to both space and Earth infrastructures increased within the space community. One reason for this is the renewed momentum of interplanetary space exploration, including the colonization of the Moon and Mars, which is part of transhumanist and commercially driven dreams of the so-called New Space age. Understanding space infrastructures as inherently linked to earthly infrastructure, we attend to the ways in which space debris, a once accepted by-product of scientific-technological progress, economic interests, and geopolitics, increasingly becomes a matter of concern. Drawing on qualitative interviews with European space sector representatives and work in Science and Technology Studies on infrastructures, we argue that their discursive efforts and visual representation strategies coproduce space debris as a boundary infrastructure. We suggest considering this boundary infrastructure as relating orbital environments and the planet through enacting sustainability and responsibility for beyond-planetary environments.

Interconnected Disaster Risks 2023: Risk Tipping Points

“…This would mean that objects and debris crash into each other, creating more debris that crashes into more objects until our satellite infrastructure will eventually be completely destroyed (Kessler, 2000). After this point, our orbits would change to become unusable, filled with millions of shards of debris that could damage or destroy any future object launched into space, eliminating our ability to gather and distribute information from space (Greenbaum, 2020;Clormann and Klimburg-Witjes, 2022).…”

“…Access to space is not evenly distributed, as currently only 10 countries and one intergovernmental organization have the capacity for orbital launches, with the United States in particular emerging as the dominant player (UCS, 2005; Koop, 2022). As only a select few countries and individuals are able to afford direct access to space, they disadvantage the rest of the planet by damaging our outer space environment (Venkatesan and others, 2020), crowding out other nations that may want to use the orbit and potentially destroying the usability of the orbit in the future (Clormann and Klimburg-Witjes, 2022). The impacts of Colonialism also have put a strain on biodiversity, contributing to Accelerating extinctions.…”

Low-earth Satellite Orbit Determination Using Deep Convolutional Networks with Satellite Imagery

“…Such collisions lead to an increase in space debris, causing difficulties for ground-based astronomical observations. Moreover, space debris contribute to pollution on Earth [3]. Thus, it is important to effectively track satellite trajectories.…”