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hi I am dr. JC Lou the NASA chief

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scientist for orbital debris at the

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Johnson Space Center hi I'm Bryan Corley

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the lead of the ISS trajectory

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operations and planning group at the

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Johnson Space Center welcome to Mission

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imagination how did you get into this

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line of work I came to Johnson Space

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Center as a postdoc research fellow more

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than 20 years ago from a very young age

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I used to love math and science I also

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enjoyed building things and more

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importantly taking apart to understand

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how they work my initial research

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focused on the dynamics of asteroids

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comments and meteoroids in the solar

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system ultimately achieved an aerospace

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engineering degree and figured what

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better place to put that into practice

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and here at Johnson Space Center or

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recent people into outer space what is

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orbital debris the term orbital debris

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is used to describe any human-made

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object in Earth orbit that does not

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serve any useful purpose typical example

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of orbital debris include spin rocky

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bodies retired spacecraft and wake up

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remnants generated from exposures or

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collisions of rocky bodies or spacecraft

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why do we care about orbital debris

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there are two reasons first the

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increasing number of orbital debris in

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the near-earth space environment and

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second the high impact speed in space

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this aluminum block is about half an

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inch thick in this penetration damage

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was caused by this tiny object here this

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diameter is only 18 of each

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the impact speed not caused this damage

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was seven kilometers per second which is

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actually lower than the average orbital

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debris impact speed at the International

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Space Station altitude how is the crew

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protected from overall debris the space

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station has shielding to protect it from

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small particles about the size of the

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New Year fingertip or one centimeter for

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larger particles about the size of your

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fist ten centimeters we can track those

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from the ground if they pose a risk to

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the space station we actually move it

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out of the way if the space station were

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to be penetrated by orbital debris the

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crew is trained it has procedures to

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detect a leak and patch it to save the

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ISS how do I avoidance maneuvers work on

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the International Space Station the

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first step in protection is tracking the

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debris the Air Force uses radars to

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track the 23,000 objects in space that

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are larger than your fist and they

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notify us if something comes within a

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certain volume of the ISS this is a

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highly choreographed process which

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involves Mission Control in both Houston

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and Moscow since the engines to perform

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the maneuver are Russian control on our

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typical circumstances we have a couple

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days to evaluate the risk and plan the

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maneuvers but it can be performed in as

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little as three hours if the risk is

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higher than one in 10,000 in a maneuver

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cannot be performed the crew will enter

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the respective return vehicles ready to

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perform an emergency undock should a

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collision occur how do we manage the

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orbital debris problem to better protect

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future space missions the most important

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step to manage the orbital debris

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problem is to limit the generation of

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new degree in the future there are

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existing policies and guidelines at NASA

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and at the international level to limit

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the generation of new debris orbital

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debris is a very difficult problem it

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will require a good international effort

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to mitigate the orbital debris problem

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now it's time for you to put science

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technology engineering and mathematics

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to work something we do at NASA every

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day good luck unchallenged number four