Orbital debris poses problems for future flights

The boom in affordable commercial microsatellites has stirred concerns about the amount of debris left floating in space.

According to data released by the US Space Surveillance Network, there are about 23,000 piece of debris with a diameter of more than 10 cm, while there are about 500,000 smaller objects, and the number is rising rapidly.

Only 5 percent of all the man-made objects in orbit are still functioning, which means that 95 percent is space debris.