Space junk is considered any piece of man-made material that is currently floating in space, ranging from derelict spacecraft and mission-related debris to spent rockets and missile fragments that reach speeds as high as 18,000 miles per hour, which is nearly seven times faster than a speeding bullet.

Darren McKnight, a Senior Technical Fellow at LeoLabs, an orbital mapping firm that provides space situational awareness services to federal and commercial agencies, believes that the threat of space junk will likely diminish our ability to launch successful space missions in the near future unless solutions are implemented. McKnight has authored several studies on the prevalence of space junk, citing the potential of space-related disasters and even the destruction of satellites currently in orbit.