The most remote from land point on Earth has many names, but most often it is called point Nemo, or oceanic pole of inaccessibility. It is located at the coordinates 48°52,6′ South latitude and 123°to 23.6′ West longitude. The closest sushi island is located about 2250 kilometers away. Due to its remoteness, this place is ideal for burial space vehicles, so space agencies often call it a “graveyard of spaceships”.
“This place is located in the Pacific ocean and is the most remote from any human civilization is a point on our planet” — describes the point Nemo space Agency NASA.
However, the bill Alora, aerospace engineer and specialist in the recovery of space vehicles into the atmosphere, there is about this place a different definition:
“It’s the best on the planet the place for something to drop from space without bringing in this third party damage”.
In order to “bury” the next spacecraft in this cemetery, space agencies, it takes some time to carry out the necessary calculations. As a rule, more compact satellites do not end up exactly at point Nemo, as NASA explains, “the heat generated by atmospheric friction, to a greater extent destroys falling at a speed of several thousand kilometers per hour, the satellite before it falls. TA-da! It’s like magic. If there was no satellite!”.
Quite another matter — larger objects like Tiangong-1, China’s first orbiting space station, launched in September 2011, which weighs about 8.5 tons. China lost control of a 12-meter orbiting laboratory in March 2016. The prognosis is not good. The station should fall to the Ground somewhere in the beginning of 2018. Where? No one knows yet. The same Aylor, working for a nonprofit organization Aerospace Corporation, says that his company, most likely, will not dare to make predictions earlier than five days before the station is expected to be dissolved in the Earth’s atmosphere. When this happens, hundreds of pounds of various metal parts like titanium plating stations, fuel tanks and much more will continue to fall at speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour, until eventually drops on the surface of the planet.
Since China lost control over the station, the Tiangong-1, the country can confidently predict, will drop it at point Nemo.
Landfill space ships
Interestingly, astronauts living aboard the International space station, in fact, are closer to this point Nemo. The fact is that the ISS circles the Earth (and in particular on the place we’re talking about) at an altitude of about 400 kilometers, while the nearest to the point of Nemo’s piece of land is much further.
According to Popular Science, from 1971 to mid-2016, the space Agency from all over the world buried here, at least 260 of the spacecraft. Thus, according to the portal Gizmodo, the quantity disposed of spacecraft has increased sharply in 2015, when their total number was at that time only 161.
Here, at a depth of more than three kilometers, found his last resting place, the Soviet space station “Mir”, more than 140 Russian cargo spacecraft, several trucks of the European space Agency (e.g., the first automatic cargo ship “Jules Verne” ATV series) and even one of SpaceX’s rockets, according to reports Smithsonian.com. However, space vehicles are hardly neatly folded in one pile. Ailor notes that such large objects as the station Tangun-1, may fall apart, covering an area of 1600 kilometers along and a few dozen wide. The territory of the “exclusion” point Nemo covers an area of over 17 million square kilometers, so to find a specific fallen spacecraft is not so simple as it might seem at first glance.
Cargo ship “Jules Verne” of the European space Agency’s falling apart when entering the atmosphere. 29 Sep 2008
Of course, not all spacecraft end up in this graveyard of space technology, but chances are that part of the collapsing of the spacecraft will fall to some of the people, regardless of where this spacecraft will fall to Earth, very small, said Aylor.
“Of course, nothing is impossible. However, since the beginning of the space age the last case that comes to memory happened already in 1997. Then in Oklahoma, a woman fell unburned part of the rocket,” explains Aylor.
The one unburned piece of the rocket and the woman he fell
A much greater danger dead spacecraft can create it in orbit.
The real threat of space debris
At the moment, at various altitudes around the Earth circling around 4000 satellites. And in the near future should see even more. Elon Musk and his company SpaceX promise to launch its own Internet network, which will provide 4425 new satellites. In other words, in orbit and is now full of a variety of spacecraft, and soon will generally not overcrowded.
According to the statistics of the website Space-Track.org in addition to satellites in orbit there are thousands of uncontrolled remains of the missiles, as well as more than 12,000 other man-made objects larger than a human fist. And if it has to take down countless numbers of different screws, bolts, pieces of dried paint (plating missiles) and multiple metal particles.
“Over time, countries have begun to realize that literally litter the space, and this poses a serious threat not only to their systems, but generally for all,” adds Aylor.
The worst, according to experts the same the European space Agency, can happen when two pieces of space debris collide with each other, especially when these objects are large in size.
Accidental collision of satellites of the same though occur very rarely, but happen. The last such incident was in 1996, 2009 and two in 2013. as a result of such events, and also through deliberate destruction of satellites there is a huge number of space debris, posing a threat to other working satellites and the risk of chain effect.
“We found that this debris can remain in orbit for hundreds of years,” says Ailor.
To prevent new space debris, the aging spacecraft have time to make orbit. Many space agencies and private space companies are now considering the possibility of creating a special space vehicle-scavenger that could produce the capture of obsolete satellites and other spacecraft and send them straight to the underwater spaceship graveyard on Earth.
However, the same Ailor, like some other experts, has insisted on the development of new technologies and methods by which you can capture, pull and remove the old uncontrolled space debris that has accumulated in orbit and represents a genuine threat.
“I suggested something like XPRIZE Grand Challenge, where it would be possible to select the most appropriate of the three concepts of space vehicles and to give grants for their development and subsequent use in the purification of the orbit of the planet,” says Ailor.
Unfortunately, technical difficulties in the implementation of such plans are not in the first place among the problems, when there is such a thing as bureaucracy.
“The technical complexity is not the main. The main problem here creates the idea of ownership. For example, no other nation has no right to touch those American satellites. This occured — and it can be calculated as an act of military aggression,” — explains Aylor.
According to Alora, in the face of a common threat, all Nations of the world must unite, because only in that way can effectively solve such problems.
Spaceship graveyard: what is it and where is it located?
Nikolai Khizhnyak