Satellite Selfie Shows Damage Caused by Mystery Impact

Earth’s orbit is getting really crowded, with hoards of new satellites being launched to space and the remains of defunct ones floating around. A satellite’s recent selfie revealed unexpected damage sustained to its solar panel, which was likely caused by an unidentifiable impact that took place over the past year.

This week, satellite company NanoAvionics revealed that its MP42 microsatellite bus survived a hit in low Earth orbit, which left behind a 0.2-inch-hole (6 millimeters) on one of its solar arrays. The company discovered the impact thanks to the satellite’s selfie-taking skills, with the chickpea-sized crater appearing in an image taken by the satellite’s onboard camera this month. Still, NanoAvionics isn’t quite sure what might have impacted its satellite. “We obviously cannot exclude the possibility of an alien satellite-pecker, but our best bets are on a piece of space debris or a micrometeoroid,” the company wrote on X.

It’s also hard to pinpoint exactly when the impact occurred. The last time MP42 took a selfie was in April 2023, so the orbital hit-and-run may have taken place any time during the past year and a half.

Despite the sustained damage to its solar panel, the satellite continues to function normally. According to telemetry data, the impact did not affect the satellite’s ability to generate power. Although that also makes it harder to figure out when the satellite was struck.

“Whether this impact was from a micrometeoroid or a piece of space debris, the collision highlights the need for responsible space operations in orbit and makes us reflect on satellite resilience against these types of events,” NanoAvionics wrote in a statement.

There are more than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris currently being tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network, with lots of smaller pieces also floating around undetected. The flying space junk has a risk of impacting other satellites in orbit, and things are only getting worse as space becomes more accessible.

Earlier this month, a communications satellite broke apart in space, creating a cloud of debris that grew to nearly 500 bits of spacecraft hardware flying uncontrollably in orbit. The International Space Station has had to carry out 32 collision avoidance maneuvers to dodge pieces of space debris between 1999 and 2022.

MP42 launched in April 2022 on the SpaceX Transporter-4 mission, a pathfinder mission for NanoAvionics’ M6P cubesat platform for various space applications. The company’s satellites are equipped with propulsion systems for controlled deorbiting, reducing long-term debris in space, according to NanoAvionics. Other companies should follow suit to create a cleaner orbit with less chances of collisions.