Lucas Helme, Daniel Benavides-Alvarez, Syed Salman Husainie, Ya-Ching Tang, Ryan Yi
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Since the 1957 launch of Sputnik, satellites have transformed our world. They power global navigation and telecommunications, monitor our planet’s environmental health, and—through missions like Hubble and James Webb—unveil the mysteries of the deep cosmos.
As satellites become more and more a part of our daily lives, we ask how has the population of satellites changed over time, and what does it look like today?
This dot represents a single satellite;
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A large share of what we track is not active satellites. Debris and rocket bodies dominate the catalog, setting the stage for cascading collisions.
Collisions create debris, debris creates more collisions. This chain reaction can make portions of LEO increasingly unusable over time. The CRASH Clock is an environmental indicator of collision risk in low Earth orbit (LEO). It asks: if all manoeuvres were to stop, how long would it take until a potential collision occurs between tracked artificial objects, including satellites, debris, and abandoned rocket bodies?
To understand why LEO keeps filling up, we look at production and launch patterns by manufacturer, country, and launch site.
LEO is not yet unusable, but current trends point toward rising collision risk. Debris accumulation + dependence on LEO makes space pollution the central issue to address.