Flights could be delayed due to space junk falling from the sky

Researchers from the University of British Columbia, Canada, warn that there is a 26 per cent chance that old bits of rocket or dead satellites that have not burned could crash down on Earth and cause airspaces to shut down.
Benjamin Virgili Bastida, a European Space Agency system engineer, said: "Airplanes flying through the ash of a volcano is risky because of the small particles. Kind of a similar thing could happen with re-entering debris.
"What we are trying to investigate in the studies we are running is to see what is really the threshold for risk for an aircraft."
In November 2022, flights in Spain were thrown into chaos as a 20-ton core stage of a Chinese Long Rocket 5B rocket re-entered the atmosphere, forcing cancellations, delays, and re-routing of 300 flights.

For feedback: contact the Editorial Department at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com.