Space exploration has always been a dream of man who always desired to do the impossible. Several amazing individuals and organizations have contributed to this cause which has generated one of the best feats of engineering that humanity has ever seen, but problems have also arisen from the exploration of the unknown. In this presentation, I will give an overview of the entire history of space exploration, from the very first days with Konstantin Tiolkovsky to the present with the projects of mega constellations, with the most important highlights in the middle. I will then discuss the looming problem that was created: the space debris problem. I will discuss what they are, what technologies are used to observe them, the systems already created and real instruments both in a global and a national picture. At the end I will also add a pipeline analysis created for the Portuguese network to detect space debris.
Organized by: Catarina Cosme