On the 12th of April our country is celebrating Cosmonautics day –59 years ago Yuri Gagarin made the world's first orbital flyby of the Earth lasting 1 hour 48 minutes.
After this, the near-earth space began to be actively developed.
Let's talk about the document aimed to protect it from technogenic pollution.
GOST R 52925-2018 «Space technology items. General requirements for space vehicles for near-earth space debris mitigation». The document, which came into force last year, replaced the one published in 2008
The standard applies to newly created and modernized space facilities for scientific, commercial, socio-economic (including deep space research) purposes.
According to the text, the design and operational documentation for all space assets should include the specific composition and content of design and operational measures to implement the requirements of the technical task to limit technogenic debris in near-earth space.
It is necessary to analyze each case of such pollution, determine the causes of the situations that led to it, and develop recommendations for their prevention.
The main sources of contamination of near-earth space are explosions of space vehicles, including self-destruction and destruction when they collide with each other or with meteorites, as well as emissions of operating materials (springs, pushers, fragments of pyrobolts, etc.), unburned fuel or means of ensuring the life of astronauts.
In order to prevent the formation of space debris during routine operations, it is also necessary to exclude the possibility of ejecting solid fuel and fragments of nozzle caps, caps, along with other elements of propulsion systems.
Among the main measures to limit the contamination of near-earth space, the document mentions: the prevention of intentional and unintentional destruction of space assets, as well as due to their explosion; the prevention of the formation of space debris; and the removal of vehicles from their working orbits after their active operation.
To prevent unintentional destruction of space assets, it is necessary to analyze possible defects and possible failures that can lead to failure at the design stage.
To prevent the deliberate destruction of space assets, it is necessary to design and develop them in such a way that during self-destruction or deliberate collision, pieces of coating would not fall off from them, thus forming space debris.
When planning the launch of space assets, it is also necessary to assess the danger of their collisions with space objects. Choosing the correct launch time intervals will minimize this risk.
