The United Kingdom (UK) has come up with a plan to get rid of dangerous space junk amid increasing activity outside the Earth’s orbit. Britain is developing a £61.3 million robotic spacecraft designed to hunt down defunct satellites.
The robot is designed to grab the junk with giant mechanical arms and push it towards Earth’s atmosphere, where they will burn up.
The UK Space Agency announced Wednesday that the debut mission will target two inactive British satellites. The first satellite’s removal is expected by 2030 and the second will be removed by 2032.
Dubbed a “Space Binman”, the spacecraft is being developed by ClearSpace UK under the government’s Active Debris Removal programme. It is scheduled to launch in 2029 from SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland.
Unlike conventional satellites, which are generally designed to operate independently, the cleanup craft will have to approach objects that were never built to be captured or serviced in orbit. Its robotic arms will clamp onto the dead satellites before guiding them into a lower orbit for atmospheric re-entry.
Space debris travels at speeds exceeding 17,000 miles per hour, making even a small collision potentially destructive. Defunct spacecraft, broken rocket components and fragments from past collisions already crowd Earth’s orbit.
The growing debris field threatens working satellites that support GPS navigation, weather forecasting, communications and other services used every day.
Scientists have also warned that collisions could trigger a chain reaction, creating so much additional debris that some orbital regions become difficult or dangerous to use.
The UK government hopes the project will do more than clear two pieces of space junk. The spacecraft is being designed to be refuelled and potentially reused for future cleanup missions, opening the door to a wider commercial market for satellite servicing.
