extends and attaches to the metallic plate that allows us to then basically perform a tow truck or a tug service to bring that satellite down to a safe distance and then we can release it to naturally and safely burn up in the atmosphere. astroscale caught the attention of prince of wales who visited the uk based mission control last week. the company has debris removal contracts with uk, european union and japan. the u.s., unfortunately, we haven t seen as much traction from the u.s. government. but the biden administration is starting to change that. in january, the white house held meetings with experts about how to clean up space and the space force is launching a program called orbital prime to give the funding to do it. aggressively explore those capabilities with you today in the hope that we and others can purchase them as a service in
tracking more than 40,000 objects in space about only 5,000 are active satellites. the vast majority of space junk from two major players in the first space race. russia and the united states. if these spacecraft were left by the u.s. government and in general, they were, then that becomes their responsibility to clean it up in the same way the military would not leave a broken down tank on the battlefield nor would it go ahead and leave a derelict ship at sea. reporter: so far, the effort to clean up space led by japan in the european space agency and private companies. some companies like clear space are trying to grab debris with robotic tentacles and others trying to catch it with a massive fishing net and in august, a company called astroscale successfully tested the satellite with the magnetic arm. we use a robotic arm that