An ESA sponsored conference on space debris finds a consensus on the need to act on the problem:

Global experts agree action needed on space debris

25 April 2013 There is an urgent need to remove orbiting space debris and to fly satellites in the future without creating new fragments, Europe’s largest-ever space-debris conference announced today.

The findings from the 6th European Conference on Space Debris were released during the concluding press briefing at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

Future space missions must be sustainable, including safe disposal when they are completed. The current levels mean that we must soon begin removing debris from orbit, with research and development urgently needed for pilot ‘cleaning’ missions.

Watch media briefing: Findings of the 6th European Conference on Space Debris, 25 April 2013, ESA/ESOC

The removal of space debris is an environmental problem of global dimensions that must be assessed in an international context, including the UN.

These results were presented to over 350 worldwide participants representing almost all the major national space agencies, industry, governments, academia and research institutes.

“There is a wide and strong expert consensus on the pressing need to act now to begin debris removal activities,” says Heiner Klinkrad, Head of ESA’s Space Debris Office.

Expert consensus on the need to act

“There is a wide and strong expert consensus on the pressing need to act now to begin debris removal activities,” says Heiner Klinkrad, Head of ESA’s Space Debris Office.

Future debris density at poles with and without active debris removal

“Our understanding of the growing space debris problem can be compared with our understanding of the need to address Earth’s changing climate some 20 years ago.”

There was wide agreement that the continuing growth in space debris poses an increasing threat to economically and scientifically vital orbital regions.

In addition to providing daily benefits to citizens and economies, today’s satellite infrastructure has immense value. The replacement cost for the approximately 1000 active satellites in orbit today is estimated to be around €100 billion. The impact on the overall economy of losing these satellites would be several orders of magnitude higher. Society would be severely damaged.

“While measures against further debris creation and actively deorbiting defunct satellites are technically demanding and potentially costly, there is no alternative to protect space as a valuable resource for our critical satellite infrastructure,” he notes.

“Their direct costs and the costs of losing them will by far exceed the cost of remedial activities.”

The findings were delivered by senior researchers and specialists from the DLR German Aerospace Center, France’s CNES space agency, Italy’s ASI space agency, the UK Space Agency, the Committee on Space Research, the International Academy of Astronautics and ESA.

ESA accelerates space debris research and development

Satellite operators worldwide, including those flying telecom, weather, navigation, broadcast and climate-monitoring missions, are now focusing their efforts on controlling space debris.

The ultimate goal is to prevent a cascade of self-sustaining collisions from setting in over the next few decades.

ESA, as a space technology and operations agency, has identified the development of active removal technologies as a strategic goal.

A number of long-standing space debris-related research activities are being reinforced by the Agency. This includes improving our understanding of the debris environment and its evolution using novel, sensitive measurements and improved modelling of debris sources.

The new Clean Space initiative includes maturing technology to approach, capture and deorbit targets – a mission is already under study.

Clean Space will also develop techniques to mitigate the problem, such as passive and active deorbiting devices and the means to ‘passivate’ retiring satellites.

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Here’s a EuroNews report on the space debris issue:

The latest presentation to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group is now posted in the FISO Working Group Presentations Archive. Both slides (pdf) and audio (mp3) are available for the talk, Skylab II, Making a Deep Space Habitat from a Space Launch System Propellant Tank – Brand Griffin, Gray Research – Mar.27.2013

Rushing headlong hand in hand with NASA into the past, Mr. Griffin wants to use NASA’s revived Saturn V to build a revised Skylab space station (though, in this case, for deep space rather than for LEO):

Note that Mr. Griffin compares the cost of a Delta IV to the fairy tale $500M cost for the SLS. This number comes from NASA’s absurd use of fantasy marginal cost estimates when asked for the cost of its launch vehicle missions.

Say the SLS program averages one to two flights per year. If the cost is $3B per in the years with one launch and $3.5B in the years with two launches then NASA will claim that a SLS flight costs $500M (i.e. the marginal cost, which is the cost to produce one more unit output). This is obviously ridiculous. The meaningful cost is $6.5B/3 = $2.17B per flight.  For low production numbers, it is only the average cost that is significant, not marginal cost.  (Usually NASA just guesses how much one more flight would cost but I used this year to year comparison to make the marginal cost more explicit.)

Of course, unlike normal enterprises, the development cost of the SLS, which will be around $20B for the initial  70mT  version, should also be spread over the launches but NASA ignores development costs just like it ignores annual  infrastructure/fixed costs.