Milky Way (space debris tracking system)

2023: Federal Project Development

At the end of July 2023, Roskosmos announced the development of a federal project for a system for ensuring the safety of space activities in the near-Earth space "Milky Way." The corresponding document is under approval.

As a source of resource support for the creation of the Milky Way system, a corresponding federal project should become, which the state corporation Roscosmos has prepared and is systematically coordinating with interested federal executive bodies, Roscosmos said on July 27, 2023 (quoted by TASS).

Russia has developed a federal project for the development of cosmonautics "Milky Way"

The state corporation noted that the Milky Way will ensure the stability of space activities at a qualitatively new level. The system involves the placement of a network of observation stations throughout the Earth, which implies greater international cooperation both in the creation and in its further operation.

In mid-April 2023, it became known that the president Russia Vladimir Putin approved the creation of the federal Milky Way project.

That's the problem - space junk... We have a program, I think it will soon turn into a federal project, because I met with the president and received consent from him to develop a federal project called the Milky Way. This program provides for tracking, first of all, all space debris, - said then the head of Roscosmos Iouri Borisov, communicating with students at the Tsiolkovsky Film Festival in Kaluga.

According to him, particles of space debris less than 10 cm in size cannot be traced. It is necessary to develop optical, radar, ground and orbital means of observation, collection and processing of information in order to predict and warn of possible collisions with space debris, Borisov added on April 14, 2023.^[1]

2022:5 ISS rescues from destruction by space debris

The Russian Milky Way system in 2022 saved the International Space Station (ISS) from destruction by space debris five times. This was announced in mid-March 2023 by Maxim Penkov, Advisor to the General Director of TsNIImash JSC.

According to him, an automated warning system for dangerous situations in near-Earth space (ASPS OKP; she is also the Milky Way) helped "prevent the loss of a unique space complex worth more than $200 billion, as well as ensure the preservation of the life and health of the station's crew." In total, in 2022, the system revealed more than 16 thousand approaches of dangerous objects with the ISS and Russian spacecraft, Penkov added in a conversation with TASS.

International Space Station

By March 2023, ASPOS OKP includes ground observation points, a complex for collecting and processing data. The updated version of the system was called the Milky Way. In the future, it will include 65 telescopes and a segment of equipment in space.

On March 14, 2023, Roscosmos reported that the Russian cargo ship Progress MS-22 again saved the ISS from colliding with space debris. According to the state corporation, Progress MS-22 led the ISS away from a collision with space debris for the second time in a month. The ship's engines turned on at 14:54 Moscow time, worked 135 seconds and gave a pulse of 0.3 meters per second. After that, the average altitude of the station's orbit was 419 km above the surface of our planet.

Roscosmos added that the height of the ISS orbit, which has been operated since 1998, was adjusted 336 times, including 34 corrections in order to evade space debris. With the help of the Progress ships, 185 corrections were made.

True, it seems impossible to fully protect the ISS from collisions. At the end of 2022, the circuit of the cooling system of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the ISS was depressurized. It is believed that this was due to a collision with a tiny object.^[2]

2020: Announcement

On January 28, 2020, Roscosmos told some details about the system for finding dangerous asteroids and monitoring space debris. Previously, it was called ASPOS (Automated Warning System for Dangerous Situations in Near-Earth Outer Space), and now renamed the Milky Way. This was told by the first deputy general director of the state corporation "Roscosmos" Yuri Urlichich.

He held a presentation in which he said that it was planned to introduce four satellites into the system. Two of them will be aimed at monitoring near-Earth space, and two - space. In the future, the system will include two spacecraft to divert and change the trajectory of potentially dangerous objects.

system for searching for dangerous asteroids and monitoring space debris

By January 2020, research is underway to improve the system. In particular, a methodology for predicting the spread of space debris objects is being developed, taking into account mutual collisions of large debris.

Earlier, the executive director of Roscosmos for science, Alexander Bloshenko, told Interfax that in the future the system is planned to be modernized to monitor also the asteroid-comet danger.

As part of the warning system for dangerous situations, there are several stations in Russia, in particular in the area of ​ ​ Kislovodsk, Ussuriysk and Abrau-Dyurso (Krasnodar Territory). Also, tracking stations are located in Armenia and Brazil. In addition, it is planned to place the system stations in Chile, Mexico and South Africa.

In total, according to the estimates of the Moscow State Technical University named after N.E. Bauman, by the beginning of 2020, about 7.2 thousand tons of space debris revolves around the Earth. There are about 18 thousand objects in orbit with a size of more than 10 cm, including 1200 satellites and about 150 million very small fragments, the size of which is less than 1 mm.^[3]

Notes