The group of G7 nations has pledged to take action on space debris as part of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in the United Kingdom. Delegates from G7 nations Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a joint statement on June 13, committing to “safe and sustainable use of
Scientific American
Space Junk Removal Is Not Going Smoothly
Despite promising technology demonstrations, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the growing problem of taking out the orbital trash
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Even tiny pieces of space debris can have catastrophic effects. This image shows the result of a lab-test impact between a block of aluminum and a small aluminum sphere traveling at nearly 7 kilometers per second. Credit: ESA
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A Space Age “tragedy of the commons” is unfolding right under our nose or, really, right over our head and no consensus yet exists on how to stop it. For more than a half-century, humans have been hurling objects into low-Earth orbit in ever growing numbers. And with few meaningful limitations on further launches into that increasingly congested realm, the prevailing attitude has been persistently permissive: in orbit, it seems, there is always room for one more.
Cleaning up cosmic litter
On March 22, Astroscale launched its End-of-Life Services by Astroscale (ELSA-d) demonstration craft on a Soyuz rocket that took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
It is the first commercial mission to prove the core technologies necessary for space debris, Okada said.
How does the clean up work?
ELSA-d is made of two satellites that have been stacked atop each other, a 175-kilogram (385-pound) servicer satellite and a client satellite that weighs 17 kilograms.
The servicer vehicle is equipped with proximity rendezvous technologies and a magnetic docking mechanism and is designed to remove defunct satellites and other large pieces of debris from orbit.
https://www.afinalwarning.com/505206.html (Natural News) The mission to clean up space debris has begun. The world’s first satellite that uses magnets to gather up all of the trash floating around the Earth’s orbit was initially scheduled to launch in Mar. 20. Unfortunately, due to technical problems, the rocket that would have brought this satellite into space has been delayed.
The craft is known as End-of-Life Services-d (ELSA-d). It was made by Astroscale, a Japanese corporation whose goal is to mitigate the hazardous buildup of debris orbiting the Earth.
ELSA-d’s task is to perform a series of tests to figure out if the craft’s ability to retrieve space debris with a magnet is a viable option for future space trash collection missions.