April 26, 2012 FEATURE | Demolition Contractors for Canadian
Space Agency to study remediation of low earth orbit
Environmental remediation efforts commonly focus on polluted
land and waterways. The past decade has seen increased emphasis
on remediating Low Earth Orbit (LEO) — a segment of space
located between 160 kilometres and 2,000 kilometres from the
Earth’s surface. NASA estimates that LEO contains 21,000 chunks
of orbital debris larger than 10 centimetres in diameter and
500,000 chunks between one and 10 centimetres. The orbit also
contains more than 100 million particles smaller than one
centimetre. Travelling at an average speed of 10 kilometres per
second, each of these particles is capable of impacting other
orbiting bodies with a wallop. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
is a member of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination
Committee, which examines issues surrounding space debris. Last
October CSA awarded three $250,000 contracts to two Canadian
companies to develop concept studies that might l