Scientists reveal just how likely it is that someone will be KILLED by an out-of-control rocket this year

Between the endless delays and violent turbulence, flying can already be a nerve-wracking experience.

But scientists have now found one more thing to worry about while hopping on an airplane.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia have calculated the chance that someone will be killed by a falling rocket striking their plane this year.

They calculate that the odds of a passenger being killed by space debris in any given year are 1 in 2,200.

This is likely to be a conservative estimate as it only considers the risk of falling rocket bodies, ignoring the dangers posed by satellites, and assumes the debris doesn't break into smaller pieces.

Previous studies suggest that the chance of space debris killing one or more people within the next decade is as high as one in ten.

Additionally, although the risk of hitting an aircraft is relatively low, rocket junk has a very real chance of causing additional costs and delays for passengers.

The researchers calculated that there is a 26 per cent that a piece of rocket junk will fall through busy airspace this year.

As spaceflight becomes cheaper and more accessible, the number of rocket launches taking place each year has rapidly increased.

In 2000, there were just 81 successful rocket launches according to RocketLaunch.org, a website which tracks launch data.

By 2024 that had increased to 258 launches in a single year, leaving 2,300 rocket bodies still in orbit.

The side-effect of this boom in the space industry is a similar increase in the number of rocket parts tumbling back down to Earth.

As rockets launch, lower stages and boosters detach and are left behind in orbit.

If these stages aren't orbiting fast or high enough, they will inevitably be pulled down into the atmosphere where they either burn up or fall to the ground as debris.

Currently, fewer than 35 per cent of launches include measures to control what happens to the rocket body after it detaches, leading to 120 uncontrolled rocket re-entries in 2024.

Increasingly, these re-entries occur over populated areas, causing disruption to air travel and threatening human life.

Lead author Dr Ewan Wright says: 'The recent explosion of a SpaceX Starship shortly after launch demonstrated the challenges of having to suddenly close airspace.

'The authorities set up a ‘keep out’ zone for aircraft, many of which had to turn around or divert their flight path. And this was a situation where we had good information about where the rocket debris was likely to come down, which is not the case for uncontrolled debris re-entering the atmosphere from orbit.'

Likewise in 2022, a 20-tonne Chinese Long March 5B rocket fell to Earth over the Atlantic Ocean.

Its predicted path passed directly over central Spain, southern France, and Monaco leading these countries to temporarily close parts of their airspace.

To calculate the risk posed by this debris, Wright and his co-authors looked at the number of aircraft flying on the busiest day of 2023.

On that day, Denver, Colorado had the most densely populated airspace with one aircraft for every 6.9 square miles (18 km squared).

Using this as the peak, the researchers then matched the probability of debris falling over a given area against how busy its airspace was on that day.

For airspace with densities 50 per cent of the peak or greater, which you might find above major cities and travel hubs, the probability of a piece of rocket body causing disruption was just 0.8 per cent.

However, the vast majority of the world’s airspace is not nearly as busy which means the chances of debris disrupting travel is significantly higher.

But for areas like the busy regions around airports in the northeastern United States and northern Europe, which has densities 10 per cent of the peak, the risk of debris falling through rises to 26 per cent.

Likewise, most of the airspace above southern Europe, including those forced to close by the Long March rocket's re-entry in 2022, have densities just 5 per cent of the peak or higher.

There is a 75 per cent chance that rocket debris will re-enter through airspace in this category in any given year.

These probabilities also allowed the researchers to work out how likely it is for a piece of falling rocket body to strike a passing aircraft.

In their paper, published in Scientific Reports, they calculate that the annual risk of rocket debris striking an aircraft is one in 430,000.

Assuming there are 200 people per aircraft, this gives an annual risk of fatality of one in 2,200.

However, the researchers suggest that the true risk posed by space debris is likely to be higher.

Earlier estimates produced by The Aerospace Corporation estimate in 2021 suggest that the annual risk of a casualty caused by debris hitting an aircraft was one in 1,000 and would rise to one in 119 by 2035.

This estimate was significantly higher because it considers the risk of falling satellites and assumes that debris would break up into smaller pieces as it burns up in the atmosphere.

While some fallen rocket pieces have weighed several tonnes, only a very small piece of debris is needed to severely damage an aircraft.

The researchers note that a piece of debris as small as one gram could damage an aircraft if it hit a window or engine due to the massive speed with space junk falls to Earth.

A piece as large as 300g could cause a 'catastrophic incident' and the total destruction of the aircraft.

Smaller pieces of debris are also likely to take longer to fall to the ground, with some 'confetti-like' pieces lingering for hours.

Likewise, this study does not consider the risk posed to someone on the ground by falling space debris.

A previous study by scientists from the University of British Columbia predicted there was a ten per cent chance of space debris killing someone in a decade.

This study found that, if a typical rocket re-entry spreads debris across a 10 square metre (108 square ft) area, then there is roughly a 1 in 10 chance that one or more casualties will occur over the next 10 years.

They also said there was a higher risk to those living in the global south, with errant parts three times more likely to land at the latitudes of Jakarta, Dhaka and Lagos than those of New York, Beijing or Moscow.

Professor Michael Byers, co-author of the current study and professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, says this risk will continue unless space companies are forced to make changes.

Controlled re-entry and designing rockets which fragment into small, safer pieces are possible but there is nothing forcing space agencies to implement these changes.

Professor Byers says: 'Countries and companies that launch satellites won’t spend the money to improve their rockets' designs unless all of them are required to do so.'

'So, we need governments to come together and adopt some new standards here.'