Meet Amber Yang. She's trying to prevent a space debris catastrophe

Updated 6:56 AM ET, Fri January 26, 2018

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

College first-year Amber Yang has won a number of prizes for her method of predicting the path of orbital debris. Scroll through to find out why these often tiny piece of matter in Earth's orbit pose such a problem for space missions.

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

Space debris is an issue NASA has been aware of since our first excursions beyond Earth. One recent report stated that debris as small as 0.12 inches across "could pose danger to human spaceflight." This photo, taken in August 1960, shows a 0.8 inch piece of polyethylene hitting an aluminum target at 19,500 feet per second, as part of an impact test conducted by NASA's Ames Research Center.

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

Hyper-velocity testing is a key part of engineering spacecraft fit for orbit. This 2009 image from the European Space Agency shows the effect of a 0.47 inch, 0.06 ounce aluminum ball hitting a 7-inch thick aluminum block at 4.2 miles per second. The agency says the pressure and temperature of such an impact "exceeds those found at the center of the Earth."

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

This 2004 image shows an "eyebolt," a two-inch component which had detached from a solar array. Along with spent rockets and dead satellites, other objects -- including a $100,000 tool kit and the creator of "Star Trek's" ashes -- have ended up in orbit. Some will quickly slip out of orbit and burn up on reentry, while others will circle the planet for years. Intersecting orbits can cause a huge hazard for satellites and space stations.

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

A close-up photograph showing the damage sustained by the Solar MAX experiment from a tiny piece of space debris. Today the International Space Station has a number of debris protocols, from maneuvering out of a collision path to sheltering in a Soyuz capsule when the probability of a significant collision is high.

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

A number of magnified images showing "pitting" in space shuttle windows. The glass used was extremely strong, but could be damaged by debris as small as a fleck of paint. Today the International Space Station's cupola observation windows are quadruple glazed, but are still susceptible to miniscule pieces of debris.

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (picture top) seen before deployment by Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984. Containing a number of experiments, it was left in low Earth orbit until 1990. Upon retrieval analysts counted over 20,000 impacts on the satellite according to NASA's Orbital Debris Program.

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$A picture from NASA's Orbital Debris Program mapping the many impact points on panels from the Hubble Space Telescope. The US Department of Defense tracks thousands of objects in orbit, and can forewarn satellite owners when significant debris is on its way. But the US Space Surveillance Network only tracks objects four inches and larger, meaning pieces fractions of an inch wide slip through and can cause damage.$

Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

A picture from NASA's Orbital Debris Program mapping the many impact points on panels from the Hubble Space Telescope. The US Department of Defense tracks thousands of objects in orbit, and can forewarn satellite owners when significant debris is on its way. But the US Space Surveillance Network only tracks objects four inches and larger, meaning pieces fractions of an inch wide slip through and can cause damage.

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In December 2017, NASA released details of its <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/sensor_to_monitor_orbital_debris_outside_ISS" target="_blank">Space Debris Sensor</a>, a new addition to the International Space Station. It will record instances of debris between 0.002-0.02 inches wide for two to three years, using an acoustic system to measure size, speed, direction and density.

Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

In December 2017, NASA released details of its Space Debris Sensor, a new addition to the International Space Station. It will record instances of debris between 0.002-0.02 inches wide for two to three years, using an acoustic system to measure size, speed, direction and density.

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Photos: Space debris: Small objects, big problem

As we fill low Earth orbit with more debris, the likelihood of a significant collision increases. Yang's software, now used by her company Seer Tracking, has won a number of awards for its use of an artificial neural network to predict the future path of debris. She says she has received attention from a number of private companies looking to launch satellites into space.

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Story highlights

Yang's prize-winning project models the path of space debris
The software uses an artificial neural network, designed to replicate the learning process of the brain
She claims it can predict orbit paths more accurately than current technology

This feature is part of Tomorrow's Hero, a series profiling young innovators transforming the world for a brighter future. Discover their stories here.

(CNN)After watching "Gravity," Amber Yang started having nightmares.

The ninth-grader and astrophysics enthusiast from Windermere, Florida was naturally drawn the film, which imagined an astronaut's desperate escape to Earth after the destruction of a NASA space shuttle.

"Gravity" bent some rules of physics, broke others, but its most terrifying plot device was, in theory, true. A phenomenon known as the Kessler syndrome, it's a scenario in which low Earth orbit -- home to the International Space Station and other satellites -- has reached a critical density of objects. An explosion, or collision between two objects with intersecting orbits, creates debris, setting off an exponential chain of collisions causing a catastrophic breakup of objects above Earth.

"Gravity" (2013) was loosely based on a destructive orbital event known as the Kessler syndrome.

The implications are chastening, with the debris belt limiting our ability to reenter space for a significant amount of time.

Yang, now a college first year, has moved on from the nightmares. She's too busy trying to stop a space debris calamity from ever happening.

Faster than a speeding bullet

Low Earth orbit, starting a few hundred miles up, contains millions of objects, ranging from space stations and rocket boosters to flecks of paint. Traveling 10 times faster than a bullet, a speck of debris less than half an inch wide can impact with the force of a hand grenade, meaning no object is benign.

The European Space Agency says for many missions, space debris impact represents the third highest risk of losing a spacecraft behind risks associated with launch and deployment in orbit. Avoiding collisions requires constant monitoring and intervention -- the US Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network makes hundreds of thousands of observations every day.

Timothy Payne, chief of operations assessments division at Headquarters Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), told CNN that AFSPC "routinely provides to NASA satellite predictions 10 days into the future to support collision avoidance," but did not elaborate as to how these predictions were made.

But Yang says she's developed a new way to predict orbits more accurately, and do so weeks into the future. What's more, she's won a number of prizes for her solution.

The neural network

"I started researching when I was in my second year of high school," she told CNN. Yang looked at current tracking methods -- ground and space-based sensors and radars -- as well as predictive methods such as an extended Kalman filter, a mathematical algorithm dating from the time of the Apollo program she says some organizations still use. (Payne confirmed AFSPC is not among them.)

A close-up photograph showing damage sustained by the Solar Max experiment from a tiny piece of orbital debris.

By 2016 Yang had turned to artificial neural networks, a computing system designed to replicate the learning process of the human brain. They can be used to identify patterns -- patterns like orbital debris paths.

'Satellite catcher' will use magnets to clean up space junk

Using computer modeling software with a neural network tool, Yang began programming software of her own. She inputted various laws of physics and refined the parameters of her neural network. "It was a new experience for me," she says, "I hadn't really done much coding beforehand."

To her network she added the coordinates of space debris available to the public online (accessible via Space-Track. You can see a model of this real-time data set via stuffin.space). In June 2016, Yang asked her network to predict three days ahead using 16 days-worth of back data. She says it was 98% accurate.

"There definitely is a threshold limit as to the accuracy, the further in advance you go," she cautions, but says it compares favorably to other methods. Moreover, the network is evolving.

"Artificial intelligence basically operates on the fact that it can be relearned and retrained," she adds. "So the more data I have... the more accurate the predictions will be."

Founding a company in college

Yang entered her project into multiple competitions. By the end of the year she had presented her finding at CERN, attended the White House Frontiers Conference, and delivered an impassioned TEDx talk containing powerful insights about the obstacles facing women in STEM industries.

In 2017 she became a finalist in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award -- and a $50,000 scholarship with it. Yang also found time to start university at Stanford.

She's now studying physics while running Seer Tracking, a commercial enterprise looking to license out her software.

"I'm getting a lot of consumer interest from private space corporations," Yang says. "Startup companies trying to launch different things into space are very interested in my work, because it's essentially very low-cost," she adds, comparing her neural network to sensors and radars.

A screenshot of Yang's software, which predicts the flight path of space debris via an artificial neural network.

"It is still a bit too early to put an exact price tag on my software," Yang said in a followup email, "however, current space startups that are providing debris mapping services charge around $750,000 to $1 million for one license." None, she said, use artificial neural networks.

Yang notes that no government space agency has contacted her thus far. CNN asked US AFSPC for their thoughts:

"We currently do not use neural networks for predicting orbital paths although we do think neural networks are well worth consideration and study for other areas related to satellite operations," said Payne.

"Nonetheless," he added, "we are very impressed with such a young scientist showing interest in the area of satellite orbit prediction and the capability to develop a neural network to predict them."

Looking ahead, Yang says she plans to go further in developing her software's accuracy, and is exploring convolutional neural networks and deep learning ("A lot of people think it's the next driving force in machine learning," she says).

And as for going into space, and the potential catastrophe she's trying to avert?

"If ever have the opportunity to go I still would. So far we haven't had any dangers to astronauts yet -- hopefully it remains that way."