When satellites burn up upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere, they release particles and gases, including metals like aluminum, which may affect atmospheric chemistry. And this process, known as atmospheric ablation, is still poorly understood. But early evidence does suggest that metal content in the atmosphere is rising. Should we be concerned? Let's find out more. [Music] I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-Minus Deep Space. To address the uncertainties around atmospheric ablation, the UK Space Agency commissioned three targeted studies to investigate the potential impacts of satellite re-entry. I spoke to Professor Min Kwan Kim from the University of Southampton about his findings. Dr. Kim, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It's been about a year. I really am glad to see you again. Yes, it's great to see you again, Maria. We finished our initial study funded by the UK Space Agency recently. We publicly released our findings recently through the UK Space Agency, the public blog. That's wonderful, because that is indeed when we last spoke, you were very kind in telling me, "Listen, wait till it's all released." So I've been sort of eagerly awaiting the news that it's public now. So here I am very eagerly. I'm a student sitting down going, "I really want to learn." Let's start first with the event at which I think a lot of this, your work has been recently unveiled. Let's start with that to sort of set the scene. When and where was that and what happened there? So after we finished the study funded by the UK Space Agency, we produced a really long document. It's still over the couple of hundred pages. So that is the detailing, all of our findings. But we understand it is very difficult to read all of the documents. So with the UK Space Agency, we actually organized the workshop to disseminate our findings. In conjunction with the Sustainability Summit organized by the CK World Foundation. On the workshop, we actually summarized all of the four studies. So the one is from us, one is from the Dunham University, one is from the University of the Leeds, one is from the Bested, which is a private company. So the workshop is basically the disseminating what we found. And also we hope the community can use our research findings as the foundation for the further study. Excellent. So I'm going to narrow the scope because it sounds like there's a lot more conversations I need to have. But I'm going to narrow the scope specifically to what you and your research team, what you all worked on. So please let's review for folks who may have forgotten or didn't listen to our last episode. What were you specifically researching? So what we do, done through these studies, we study about the risk of the current, the practice to become the disposing the satellite. So we know the space debris is the big issue. So to mitigate the space debris problems, the international community, they have the regulation to the DOB to the satellite within the 25 years, recently changed to the five years by the US. But the current practice is the best way to remove from the orbit is the atmosphere grant. The other means is the body. So our studies, the best way to start with a simple questioning, is it environmentally safe way? If we bond the satellite at the high altitude or the upper atmosphere, could it cause any significant environmental impact? We also have the experience for the global climate changes. So we don't want to make any similar mistake again. So that is our starting point. That was quite a starting point. Anything that we should know that was not in scope of this investigation, just for our context? Yeah, so this is the lack of very complicated problems. So basically through this study, we don't want to find the solutions. So what we want to understand through this study is basically the risk of these problems and what potential the problem can be caused by this kind of the practice. And what is the research gap we have? And what is the direction we have to push this kind of the area into the next level? So that is the main envelope of our study. Sounds great. If you don't mind, could you walk me through all of them? I know it's a lot, but I'm sure it's all top of mind for you right now. So can you walk me through all that? Because I'm really eager to find out. So the first we have to understand what is the potential risk of this one? Obviously, it is a really complicated problem. So we have to simplify the situation because the problem is every satellite is the unique design. They have the unique shape, the unique, the competition of the material. So we have to invent some genetic satellite, which is the most popular. So we're using the one satellite and the two estimated. What if we desatellized the bond? How much the metal oxide can be produced? And we predicting it is basically the metal oxide is the environmentally toxic by decomposing the ocean. So we estimate like how much ocean can be potentially can be destroyed by the one satellite. So based on our very love estimation, it is somewhere around six to eight tons for the one satellite. Six to eight tons from one satellite. Yeah, so it is not large amount because of the Earth is quite big. Yeah, the Earth is huge. Okay, yes, granted. Yes. So don't be panic. So we have plenty of the ocean. So but the some of these constellations we call these the mega constellations. So they plant like 40,000, 50,000. So there's a large number of the satellite and open their lifetime is the four to five years. So so literally means the one big mega constellation, they have to bond this about the 10,000 satellite annually. So we have the simple math. It is about the 60,000 to the 80,000 tons. It seems like a larger number is actually not the largest. Like less than 1% of the ocean can be destroyed by the one constellations. Still. Yeah. So yeah, I was going to say the scale is hard, I think for an average person to wrap their head around because we're talking such massive numbers and amounts. So yeah, thank you for that percentage. That's very important. Yeah, so easy translations to understand the normal people basically the one mega constellations can impact like 1% of the ocean layer. If we have the two, if we have the two mega constellations, literally we have the 2% of the order layer deflections. And there are some study done by the WHO a while ago. And basically the 1% order layer deflection is to literally translate into the 1% increase of the skin cancer rate. Interesting. Not desirable. Yes. So if we increase the 1%, basically it is the representing about the southern souls. Wow. My goodness. That's important context. Honestly, that's something that you mentioned when I spoke to you last year was also about how long the, I'm summarizing this poorly. I apologize. How long things remain in the upper stratosphere because that was also, did your research cover that as well? Yeah, so we do just some very brief research because of the we, first we have to understand what we don't know. That's right. In the context. Yes. Because it's the known unknown and the unknown unknown. Rumsfeld honors. Yes. Yes. So because of the, this area is so complex. So the predictions to how long it takes to do the particle coming down is the bearing from the which model we're using it. It's bearing from the 30 years prediction from the sum of the researchers and the four to five years prediction from the, some of the other researchers including us. So we can get judging what hand is the three decade, what hand is the half decade. So still there are some unknown. So basically that is the role of the scientist like me to improve the accuracy. So it's like a weather forecast. Yeah. No, this area, so much about this, this realm is just completely unknown. So it must be fascinating for you to be studying this frontier, frankly, of in just learning about something that we've just known very little about. So the, honestly, the community has the good knowledge in related to this area. But the problem is that they are not the organized well. So, because so we, this is our first problems. The from the space, the ages. So we have the knowledge from the different area, but we didn't concentrate those knowledge to tackle this problem. Hmm. We'll be right back. So there's a lot of things that we still don't know. And I'm sure that that is a lot of what you are thinking about and moving forward. So what is, what is your next step from here? What are you looking at next? So basically the way what we want is to we want to make the song generic case. Because of the, what we ideally, what I want is to help the, all of the community to focus to address these problems. Currently, everyone has in their different view, different assumptions because of the, the complexity of the problems. So therefore we want to basically the propose some of the genetic scenario with the genetic, the, the configuration of the satellite. For that we are consulting with the industries. So we're just consulting the different industry to say, okay, this is the genetic, the satellite configurations could be representing the your system, your, your missions. So then we can focus on those, the one simplified scenario to see, okay, what happened on the scenario. Whether this is the problem for the next 10 years, or 20 years, or 100 years. That's right. Yeah, mitigation is, is that is the, that is the place where my mind goes is how does one mitigate this? And that is the, we're figuring that part out. Yeah. So I won't ask because I know that's like, we're still figuring that out. I'm curious how your discussions have gone with industry so far. What have you been hearing? So the, actually the industries, the, the very keen to support this problem. So because of the, the, these are the directly related to their operations. So the, the problem is the, the, actually the, the, the, like, the, the, the design detail. So in the city, they don't want to rebuild the design detail, but they still want to contribute in it. So therefore the, our solution is, okay, let's see the generating some genetic satellite without the revealing the, the detailed design. And later they can optimize the, the, the satellite or tailor the satellite configuration to their actual satellite to predicting their emissions. They are first studies that literally consulting with them and to basically the configure like a generic representative, the satellite model. Are there, are there certain composites or elements that are maybe more of a problem as aluminum, a really big one? Is any, I'm just curious, is there anything that any conclusion we can draw? Or is that just completely to. Basically we, we released the, like, some of the top five, top 10. Yeah. The, the, the, we call these bad guys. So because of that, there are many different species. We have the, like, more than 100 different byproducts. So we have to prioritize, okay, which one is the most problematic. So definitely the, the top one is the metal oxide. So is the, the, the aluminum oxide is the, pretty much the top one because they are dominated by the mass and the, the silicon oxide. This is the other one. And the, the other ways to like a lithium oxide or the, the, the manganese, the manganese oxide, magnesium oxide. The, those, the other oxide is not the critical, but the, the problem of the aluminum oxide is not just the aluminum oxide. Basically that is the impurity. So aluminum oxide alone itself is very stable. But if there are some impurity in there, these guys act like awesome badly. Basically. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Oh, so it, there are so many different implications of this. And I'm just going to be so fascinated to hear how this resonates with a lot of different, not just industries, but other researchers. And cause there's just a lot. I'm just thinking material scientists, their heads must be really, really spinning. So when I communicate with the public to understand this problem, so I open the, the explain using the cook. So this problem is the very similar to the cook. So I'm not good cook. So when I have the same ingredient with the, with my wife, she's actually good cook. So if I having the same good like a meat. So same recipe, but slightly different way to the cook. They have the different taste. For example, if we have the, like a same beef, whether you, we cook like a, the grill, like a steak, where we don't be using the French cooking style, like a cornfie. You can see the taste is the very different texture is the very different. So which means same satellite, how we want it, how we cooking it. So our taste like a byproduct is the very different. So what we scientists is to, like me, we try to do is to find the best recipe to minimize the toxic product. So it is to be continued to find out what that recipe is for optimal cooking of the satellite steak. But the work continues, but I'm so fascinated by what you have already found. Because I have to tell you, I think of all the conversations that I have had, what I have learned from you, I have told to so many people who are not interested in space whatsoever, because it affects everybody. It affects our whole planet. And, and, and it's had, I've had a lot of fascinating conversations with people about, you know, well, what's the difference between a satellite and just a random space rock coming in. And it's just like, it's just really interesting hearing those, how people are thinking about it. So it's so cool that you're researching this. Yeah. And they also through the study, we also figured out it is the, the very challenging to set the some regulations. Because of this problem is not just in the space, it happened in the ground. So the space obviously governed by the space law, the U.S., the outer space treaty, if it comes down, it cannot be governed by the individual countries. Then who want to be set the regulations, how they can be enforcing it. So this kind of the thing is the order kind of the difficulties. Yeah. No, yeah, I can, yeah, regulations are extremely, extremely difficult. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I know you were, you were mid-time. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. So what we understand is the challenge is actually the timing. So normally, once we find the scientific evidence, we set the regulations, we, we implying it, we finding the mitigation strategy. This take a really long cycle. Yeah. But this kind of the problems, we don't have such an elegant timeline. So basically we have to do the both in the parallel. Hmm. That's it. It's always the, when we get to the implementation phase, we're with a lot of things where it gets very tricky. So my sympathies. I'm curious if I recognize this is probably a little out of scope, but a lot of our listeners are in the space industry. So is there anything that you specifically want to tell them, want them to know? I suppose a call to action may be a bit much, but if there is one, there's anything you want to say to them specifically? So basically we try to, to do some single survey through the space industry to basically create more representative scenarios and the satellite configurations. So we try to disseminating some of the initial survey to basically, okay, this is the satellite. Whether it is the representative, your satellite. Yes or no. Basically we have the simple questions and also try to create some of the generic scenario to whether it's representing your scenarios. Yes or no. So based on that is the basic feedback from the industry, from the academia and the government. We try to basically create more reliable or representative scenario for the industry, all of the people. So that sounds like something that maybe we can share with our audience so they can respond to that. Okay, I will make sure that we include that as well. Is there anything else that you would like to leave the audience with since we're coming up on time? I want to give you the final word. Anything else? Yeah, so this we understand this is the problem which we don't know whether it could be problems or not. So, but it's the, basically this is the zone of the area we need to having some, the support from the community. So the, also we have to tackle this one together. So the, it is not, it is the two big problems solved by the one university is solved by the one company. So we have to tackle this problem together because of the, this is not just done by the, the scientists or engineers also need to done by the policy makers and the regulation makers. So the, once we get the data showing, okay, this is really problems. We literally, he made some, the technology ready. Okay. This is the our mitigations. Okay. How this is the solve the problem. And we also try to set up some small international like a walking group or small community, basically to, to, to the supply storm. Okay. How we can solve the problem with data exchange. Okay. Which model is the better and how we can focus our effort to tackle this problem together. Fascinating. Well, thank you, Professor Kim. Thank you for sharing your findings with us. This is so fascinating and so important. So thank you. I look forward to learning more as, as more is learned. And please come on back and share. I really enjoy these conversations. Thank you so much for what you do. Thanks Maria. And I want to also the appreciate my deeply appreciation to the UK space agency. So they actually funded this study and they actually the support this problem first in the global level and to, to, to basically disseminating this issue to globally. That's T minus deep space brought to you by N2K cyber wire. We'd love to know what you think of our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, please share a rating and review and your podcast app. Or you can send an email to space@n2k.com. We're proud that N2K cyber wire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, the technology and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I'm T-minus host Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. [Music] [Music]
