Where’s the Speedy Glass Repair Guy When You Need Him Says ISS Astronaut

May 13, 2016 – A Friday the 13th usually brings out the superstition in those of us in the Western World. For DaVinci Code fans they know the historical reference. Friday the 13th is mentioned in the book as a date associated with the year 1307 when France’s King Philip IV ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar, the warrior monks of the Middle Ages. They were charged with heresy and many were tortured and burned at the stake. From that day of infamy to today Friday synonymous with the 13th is considered ill omened.

So this morning on the 13th day of the month I have to read that the International Space Station (ISS) has taken a hit from space debris that cracked one of its windows. You can see it in the image below probably caused by nothing bigger than a paint fleck traveling at speeds of 7.8 kilometers (4.85 miles) per second. All that speed gets converted into kinetic energy which Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 tells us amounts to an incredible amount of force even if only a fleck.

Now the impact probably didn’t happen on the 13th but that’s not what counts. It is the fact that I read it on the 13th that makes it ill omened. Having studied Medieval History as part of my double major in university I have a bit of an appreciation for the superstitions that guided the people of that period and how these beliefs continue to persist in the 21st century. Not that I believe in any of this nonsense, I say, as I rub my lucky rabbit’s foot and touch the horseshoe that hangs behind my desk.

The paint fleck incident, however, tells us we have a much larger problem to contend with in near-Earth orbit where the ISS and many other Earth satellites reside. That is space junk. There is a ton of the stuff out there and it is a threat to all the Earth observation satellites that monitor the planet at these heights. The telecommunication satellites in geostationary orbit are more distant and less prone to being hit by this space litter because there is less at those heights. But in near-Earth orbit space junk numbers in the tens of thousands and includes an accidentally discarded astronaut’s glove, at leasst one NASA camera, some space tools that got away from their operators, and debris from a satellite blown up in a demonstration by the Chinese.

In space there is no garbage truck. Nor can a windshield be repaired by a Speedy Glass operator. The ISS windows despite having been nicked are not in any immediate danger. ISS uses defense in depth. The windows are quadruple-glazed. They are layered with a transparent aluminum ceramic composite. (Star Trek fans will love to learn that transparent aluminum indeed exists.) And in addition the window that was hit is just the outer shell of a multi-layered construct that consists of 24 millimeter-thick pressure glass panels. Given advance notice of incoming debris a further defense includes debris shields that can roll down to cover the windows.

About a space garbage truck. There is one coming. CleanSpace One, a project of the European Space Agency (ESA) will be the first of its kind. A satellite designed to capture space junk. Collecting space junk is a delicate business. If the satellite doesn’t capture the object it is attempting to collect it could turn it into an even more volatile missile. So the project which may be launched as early as 2018 (see image below) is still working out the bugs on a capture system that will be fail safe. The current prototype resembles a net-like cone that can envelop debris to capture it.

It does seem odd, however, that ESA is the first to produce a garbage truck for space when NASA and the former Soviet Union should be the ones doing it. After all they are responsible for most of the garbage up there. Yet in the movie, Gravity, space debris from a Chinese satellite that breaks up is the cause of the destruction of ISS and astronaut deaths. Easy to blame the Chinese in a work of fiction. But in truth if space debris does lead to the death of a satellite or damage to ISS, any other human habitat in orbit, and potentially the loss of human life, it will be the United States and Russia who bear the greatest responsibility.

So forget about Friday the 13th. Enjoy your day and remember to look for a four-leafed clover now that winter has passed and you’ll get the luck of the Irish on this day.