Earth’s orbit urgently needs someone to take out the trash. A Japanese company is trying to make the problem worse.
The company, called Astroscale, has designed a spacecraft with a magnetic plate that can be attached to dead satellites – as long as they have the other side of the magnet. This allows him to pull the satellites into a free fall and burn up the spacecraft as well as the satellite passenger in the earth’s atmosphere.
The first version of this technology is called the End-of-Life Services at Astroscale demonstration mission, or ELSA-d, and was launched from Kazakhstan on Monday. The spacecraft carries a fake piece of “space debris” with the necessary magnetic plate built in. The plan calls for ELSA-d to release this fake junk and practice grabbing it while both are in orbit.
In the future, satellite companies could build this type of magnetic coupler in their own spacecraft and hire Astroscale to remove satellites from their orbit when they fail.
“This is an incredible moment, not only for our team but also for the entire satellite service industry, as we work to age the waste disposal market and ensure the responsible use of our orbits,” said Nobu Okada, founder and CEO of Astroscale, said in a statement.
In other words, if the company tweeted after the launch: “Let the era of sustainability in space begin.”
However, existing space debris does not have built-in magnetic plates that are compatible with Astroscale’s new spacecraft. According to the European Space Agency, more than 2,400 dead satellites and 100 million pieces of debris are already orbiting the earth – space debris that ELSA-d cannot clean up.
As the Earth’s orbit becomes more and more pressured, this space debris will be more likely to crash, and the collisions could then send new clouds of scrap metal across the planet. Over time, such collisions can create a thick mess that can, in the worst case, disable access to outer space.
Space crashes create ‘rapid-fire’ explosion ‘
An illustration of a rocket explosion in space.
ESA
Even small pieces of spatial debris are dangerous, as they zipper about ten times the velocity of a bullet on the planet. Last year, the International Space Station had to move away from space debris on three occasions, as a collision could endanger the astronauts on board.
But the largest pieces of space debris – the dead satellites and discarded rockets – carry the greatest risk of collision.
In October, a dilapidated Soviet satellite and an old Chinese rocket body passed alarmingly close together. Since no one could control any spacecraft, there was no way to prevent a collision.
Fortunately, the objects did not crash. But if they did, astronomer Jonathan McDowell calculated that it would produce an explosion that was roughly equivalent to the explosion of 14 tons of TNT and caused pieces of spacecraft to fire in all directions.
Before that, in January 2020, two dead satellites nearly crossed paths and exploded into hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris.
If they collided, it would have been like ‘replacing two satellites with, in fact, two shotgun explosions’, Dan Ceperley, CEO of the satellite tracking company LeoLabs, told Insider at the time.
Scientists have also observed actual collisions in space. In 2007, China tested an anti-satellite missile by wiping out one of its own weather satellites. Two years later, one American and one Russian spacecraft accidentally collided. These two events alone increased the amount of large debris in a low-Earth orbit by about 70%.
When India conducted its own anti-satellite missile test in 2019, the explosion created an estimated 6,500 pieces of debris larger than an eraser.
A simulation of space debris created on March 27, 2019 by India’s “Mission Shakti” anti-satellite missile test.
Analytical Graphics Inc.
In all, more than 500 such “fragmentation events” have created nearly 130 million pieces of debris in the Earth’s orbit.
Outdoor ruins can restrict people’s access to space
If the space junk problem becomes excessive, a chain of collisions can get out of control and surround the earth in a virtually impassable dirt field. This possibility is known as the Kessler syndrome, after Donald J. Kessler, who worked for NASA’s Johnson Space Center and calculated in a 1978 article that it could take hundreds or even thousands of years for such debris to suffice. is to make spaceflight safe again.
“This is a long-term effect that has been going on for decades and centuries,” Ted Muelhaupt, who leads the satellite analysis of The Aerospace Corporation, told Insider earlier. “Anything that causes a lot of debris will increase the risk.”
The large number of objects in the orbit of the earth can already have a Kessler effect. Experts believe that the congestion in space has worsened significantly since companies such as SpaceX began launching large fleets of Internet satellites into orbit.
“This has a huge impact on the launch side,” Peter Rock CEO Peter Beck told CNN Business in October. He added that rockets should try to move away in between [satellite] constellations. ‘
Astroscale aims to ensure that dead, uncontrollable satellites do not hide inside the constellations.
Some companies can clean up old space garbage
Some companies have already expressed interest in or commitment to cleaning up existing space debris.
ClearSpace, based in Switzerland, recently signed a contract with the European Space Agency to remove part of an old Vega rocket from orbit in 2025. Airbus, meanwhile, has tested satellite capture methods using a harpoon and a net.
Astroscale’s demo mission aims to test its magnetic strategy. ELSA-d will try to capture it again shortly after separating from its ‘space junk’ prototype. If the basic maneuver goes well, the spacecraft will attempt more complicated tasks: Astroscale will instruct the junk prototype to tumble and rotate as a dead satellite would normally do. This will force the ELSA-d spacecraft to assess the target and align it with the prototype’s coupling magnet.
Once the demonstration is over, the plan is for ELSA-d and his captured “debris” to plunge into the atmosphere to meet a fiery downfall.
No company has a large-scale spatial clean-up in sight so far.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the company’s mega-spaceship, Starship, could one day come under fire. But for now, the number of objects in the Earth’s orbit is increasing every year.