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Chapter 12: When Satellites Fall: On the Trails of Cosmos 954 and USA 193
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12 @ When Satellites Fall On the Trails of Cosmos 954 and USA 193 lisa parks Thousands of satellites and space objects have fallen back to Earth since the space age began. More than forty years ago, in May 1968, the Nimbus B-1 weather satellite plummeted into the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, where I live. The fallen satellite was recovered, intact, from the bottom of the Santa Barbara channel, but its failure caused an enormous stir because of the four pounds of plutonium it had on board. The event prompted an investigation that moved from the depths of the ocean to the launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base out to orbit and back down to Earth. The fall of Nimbus B-1 in California’s coastal backyard serves as a provocative reminder of the environmental risks, high costs, and unique materialities and spatialities of satellite technologies. When satellites fall, they draw attention to the vertical stretch of world history and events—a space that extends up from Earth’s surface through the atmosphere, stratosphere, and ionosphere; into the multiple orbital paths; and out to the edges of the supersynchronous or “parking” orbit, where satellites go to die. As much as this stretch may be conceived as a space of flows, waves, and flight-paths, it is also a space of capital accumulation filled with metallic hardware, synthetic materials, and toxic waste. This massive aeroorbital space, trafficked by aircraft, rockets, satellites, and signals, is a dynamic field of technologized movement and electromagnetic activity as well as a giant graveyard where dead satellites float. It is a space most of us have never visited—a space that only astronauts have seen—and yet it is a space that we cannot afford to overlook. Both James Hay and Christy Collis examine dimensions of this aeroorbital domain in their respective chapters of Down to Earth. Hay explores how air space, outer space, and cyberspace were invented within the discourses of liberal governance as “free” and “open” spaces for exploration and enterprise, on the one hand, and as extensions of sovereign territories subject to regulation and securitization, on the other. Collis hones in on the plethora of legal discourses that historically have been mobilized to define, order, and regulate the space of the geostationary orbit. This chapter interlinks with these critical geographies of aero-orbital space in the sense that it considers historical events that have transpired within this domain, technical objects that occupy it, and human attempts to visualize it. After five decades of satellite launches and space probes, there are now thousands of objects in orbit. According to a 2010 report from the U.S. Space Surveillance Network and the National Aeronautic Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Orbital Debris Program Office, there are 15,550 satellite-related objects currently orbiting Earth.1 All of these objects are 10 cm in diameter or larger, and they range in size from a tiny paint chip to a massive rocket fuel tank. Only 3,333 of them are functioning satellites.2 The rest are considered orbital debris. In addition to being filled up with debris, orbital space is trafficked primarily by objects deployed by the former Soviet Union, the United States, and China. Of the 15,550 satellite-related objects in orbit, 14,045 are from these three countries, and only 2,615 are satellites.3 To draw public attention to the problem of orbital debris, NASA has released a series of visualizations over the years.4 The 2009 graphic shown in Figure 12.1 spotlights the heavy concentrations of debris in low Earth orbit, posing risks to satellites in the vicinity as well as to the planet’s atmosphere and surface.5 In 2010, the Obama administration announced a new space policy that identified curbing the growth of orbital debris and preserving the space environment as top national priorities.6 With the increasing number of objects in orbit comes a variety of financial , political, environmental, and security concerns. Satellite owners are concerned about whether such debris will damage or interfere with their functioning satellites and compromise their investments. Environmentalists are concerned about the fact that orbit is polluted with floating space junk. And state officials are concerned about whether objects in orbit will plummet to the planet and threaten populations or valuable resources. When satellites fall back to Earth, typically they incinerate as they reenter the atmosphere, but sometimes fragments survive the extreme heat and fall to the planet...