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NASA engages The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded a grant to a Hawaii company to study the risks of debris to satellites and space missions in low Earth orbit.
isle firm to study
space debris
Oceanit will evaluate
the risks of space junk to
satellites and missionsStar-Bulletin staff
Oceanit, a research and engineering firm, will develop a computer model of the orbital debris environment in space to determine its safety for space missions.
Millions of man-made objects -- "space junk" -- orbit the earth, from about 186 miles to 1,100 miles above the surface.
They include everything from inoperative satellites and launch-rocket upper stages to tiny paint flakes and fuel droplets, Oceanit said.
The objects can travel at nearly 15,600 miles an hour, so "even the smallest paint speck can be extremely destructive in a collision," the company said.
Most space operations, including all recent manned spaced missions, occur in low Earth orbit, but the environment is not well understood, it said.
Oceanit program manager Daron Nishimoto and senior researcher Ken Cheung will lead the study.
Nishimoto, originally from Pearl City and a University of Hawaii graduate, lives on Maui.
An asteroid was named for him to recognize his efforts in the area of space surveillance.
Cheung, a Damien High School graduate from Kailua, holds a doctorate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame.
Oceanit was founded by Patrick K. Sullivan in 1985 and has offices in Hawaii and California. The Space Systems group operates from the Maui Research and Technology Center next to the U.S. Air Force research facilities.
For more information, visit Oceanit's Web site at www.oceanit.com.