WHY is space debris dangerous?
Debris does not pose a danger to those on the surface of the Earth. After all, the probability of debris falling is 1:3200.
However, it can put the space industry at risk of destruction. The January 28, 2013 disaster with the Russian 7.5-kilogram scientific satellite BLITS demonstrates this. After working in orbit for four years, it collided with a fragment weighing only 0.017-0.019 g, which was moving at 8 km/h. And it fell apart.
So about 3-4 satellites per year are killed in this way, which is not a very big number at the moment. But the theory is that the fragments of one debris-cracked satellite will at some point shatter another satellite. That, in turn, will shatter a third, and so on.
And one day a piece of debris could also hit human-piloted ships. As an example, in May 2016, a piece of metal a thousandth of a millimeter in size crashed into an ISS porthole, leaving a 7-millimeter-diameter dent.
