MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. The number of satellite collisions with other objects in orbit may rise in 20-30 years due to the amount of dangerous near misses occurring today, spokesman for the command of the special-purpose 15th Army of Russia’s Aerospace Force Anton Ogolyov said on Thursday.
"In 2018, there were 23 dangerous encounters. In 20-30 years, we may see as many collisions as we do alarming flybys today," Ogolyov said at the conference titled: "Space Debris: Fundamental and Practical Aspects of Threat."
Senior Assistant for the Department Head at the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Space Reconnaissance Center Roman Fattakhov earlier told the conference that "access to outer space may be complicated" for the mid-term perspective due to these factors.
According to NASA’s data, there are over 2,200 active and over 5,000 decommissioned satellites, and also more than 14,000 fragments of space junk floating around in space. Overall, almost 20,000 objects have been registered in the Earths’ orbit as of today.