South Korea: Numerous close calls between its lunar orbiter and others
A South Korean official has revealed that during the ongoing mission of its lunar orbiter Danuri it has had to act to avoid dozens of potential collisions with three other spacecraft.
In a presentation at the Secure World Foundation’s Summit for Space Sustainability here July 11, Soyoung Chung, senior researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s (KARI’s) strategy and planning directorate, said her agency had received 40 “red alarms” of potential collisions among spacecraft orbiting the moon in the last 18 months.
The warnings primarily involve close approaches involving KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter from India’s space agency ISRO, which are all in similar low orbits around the moon. The three agencies voluntarily share information about the orbits of their spacecraft using a NASA platform called MADCAP that generates collision warnings.
In addition, engineers had to institute a maneuver to avoid Japan’s SLIM lunar lander, and in that case the warning occurred only a day before the potential collision was to occur.
The official noted that at present there is no system to coordinate lunar orbits and spacecraft, as exists for Earth orbit. South Korea and Romania have proposed giving this power to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which based on UN politics would likely be a very bad thing for the commercial space industry. I guarantee that UN agency would quickly favor government missions in its decision, and would also favor authoritarian governments over capitalist nations.
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A South Korean official has revealed that during the ongoing mission of its lunar orbiter Danuri it has had to act to avoid dozens of potential collisions with three other spacecraft.
In a presentation at the Secure World Foundation’s Summit for Space Sustainability here July 11, Soyoung Chung, senior researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s (KARI’s) strategy and planning directorate, said her agency had received 40 “red alarms” of potential collisions among spacecraft orbiting the moon in the last 18 months.
The warnings primarily involve close approaches involving KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter from India’s space agency ISRO, which are all in similar low orbits around the moon. The three agencies voluntarily share information about the orbits of their spacecraft using a NASA platform called MADCAP that generates collision warnings.
In addition, engineers had to institute a maneuver to avoid Japan’s SLIM lunar lander, and in that case the warning occurred only a day before the potential collision was to occur.
The official noted that at present there is no system to coordinate lunar orbits and spacecraft, as exists for Earth orbit. South Korea and Romania have proposed giving this power to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which based on UN politics would likely be a very bad thing for the commercial space industry. I guarantee that UN agency would quickly favor government missions in its decision, and would also favor authoritarian governments over capitalist nations.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
This is a really big problem that needs to be fixed ASAP imho. The reason is there is no atmosphere on the moon so everything in orbit is going to stay in orbit, and as ever more missions target the moon this is soon going to be a really big problem. And just imagine the mess once there is a collision or two and we suddenly have a mess of random small object debris with no tracking infrastructure to know where they are!
At a minimum we need an agreement that any residual orbits be targeted to some pre-agreed “zones” with objects registered into a database as they enter it. But long term all lunar missions need to intentionally de-orbit any debris before this problem never really gets out of hand.
MDN: You are incorrect about your statement that everything in lunar orbit stays there. In fact, it is the opposite. Because of the mass concentrations inside the Moon, orbits are not stable and automatically decay with time. Nothing in orbit will stay in orbit, even more so than around Earth.
Not that I disagree with you main point. I just think it will be a big mistake to give this power to anyone in the UN.
We need *something*, but … more limited.
Something as simple as a multi-lateral agreement, at space agency level, to share information about vehicles in lunar space. Maybe that could be fleshed out a bit to voluntary agreements to adopt “best practices.” But none of that requires the UN or any formal organization. And I agree, the UN should not be involved in any space activity if we can possibly help it.
Scott Manley covered this topic, a couple of years ago, after a question about whether Apollo 11’s ascent module is still in lunar orbit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBHbLV7xEhc (11 minutes)