THERE is an awful lot of junk in space. The latest data from the European Space Agency propose some 7500 tonnes of it now orbits soil. It ranges from defunct satellites and rocket parts to nuts,bolts, shards of metal and even flecks of paint. But something as small as a paint fleck can still accomplish serious damage if it hits a working satellite at a speed of several thousand kilometres an hour. There have already been more than 290 collisions, and crash-ups and explosions in space. Given the likelihood that thousands of small satellites,some only a few centimetres across, will be launched over the next decade, and many worry that large volumes of space near soil will soon be rendered risky places for satellites (particularly stout,expensive ones) to be.
What is needed, then, and is a clean-up. Various ideas about how to accomplish this have been proposed,and some are about to be put to the test. In February a resupply mission to the International Space Station will also carry a satellite, about the size of a domestic...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com