The world’s first satellite to use magnets to collect space debris will be launched tomorrow morning.
The craft, called ELSA-d and made by the Japanese firm Astroscale, will fire aboard a Russian Soyuz missile from Kazakhstan on Saturday (March 20) at 06:07 GMT.
The 200kg craft consists of two components that will conduct a series of space tests to test the ability to retrieve debris with a magnetic mechanism.
Once the tests are complete, ELSA-d will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, but the satellite will be crucial for future space clean-ups.
The mission, licensed by the UK Space Agency, acts as a test case for licensing more missions to remove defunct spacecraft and debris.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), there are about 9,200 tons of space debris – defined as human-made objects fragmented from spacecraft and now hovering aimlessly above Earth.
The challenge of avoiding collisions between satellites and debris in space has been recognized by the UN, and satellites must now deviate from course to avoid a damaging impact in flight.
Saturday morning’s launch – which Astroscale says will be the world’s first commercial mission to “ demonstrate the core technologies needed to create and remove space debris ” – will be streamed live.
Japanese entrepreneur Nobu Okada founded Astroscale in 2013 with the sole purpose of launching ‘space sweepers’.
“The pre-launch activities have been successfully completed and ELSA-d is now integrated into the rocket and ready to prove our technical capabilities to the world,” said Okada, who is also the company’s current CEO.
This groundbreaking mission will also enable more informed policy developments and drive the business case for on-orbit services such as end-of-life and active debris removal.
“This is an incredible moment, not just for our team, but for the entire satellite maintenance industry as we work to mature the waste disposal market and ensure the responsible use of our jobs.” ‘
The world’s first mission to demonstrate how to remove space debris from lower Earth orbit will be launched tomorrow. ELSA-d consists of two spacecraft that will conduct a series of tests in space to test whether it is capable of picking up debris with its magnetic mechanism
The Astroscale founder previously told AFP that the density of space debris has reached a ‘critical level’ where collisions can occur at any time.
“If we don’t act, the space will no longer be sustainable,” he said. “So someone has to clean up the room.”
The future debris will largely come from constellations.
A certain percentage of the satellites will be lifted in space. And they need to be replenished with new satellites to maintain coverage.
“To do that, they have to remove the oldest satellites to make sure their orbital plane is clean.”
As part of the upcoming demonstration, two components will be blown into space together: a 180 kg service satellite to collect the debris and a 20 kg ‘customer satellite’.
The smaller customer satellite is a piece of replica debris equipped with a plate that allows it to couple to the maintenance engineer’s magnetic mechanism when it gets close.
Close-up of the 180 kg service satellite, equipped with a magnetic catch mechanism, which will be repeatedly released and linked to the ‘customer’ spacecraft
Astroscale plans to prove the capabilities required for debris removal, including customer search, inspection and rendezvous, and build both no-tumbling and tumbling
During the mission, the service technician will repeatedly release and dock with the customer in a series of technical demonstrations, as a dummy run for how he would find and dock defunct satellites and other debris.
Demonstrations include searching for the customer, inspecting and meeting him, and tumbling docking – where the customer’s satellite gets lost and tumbles away, the administrator must catch up with him.
The main demonstration stages of the mission will be completed by the end of the year – at which point the decommissioning process will begin.
At the end of the mission, the ELSA-d spacecraft will begin a slow exit phase, using the last of its propellant to responsibly avoid colliding with other debris in space, eventually burning up on reentry, John Auburn, director of Astroscale UK, told MailOnline.
“We are already working hard on the next phase of the program to retrieve multiple debris in one mission, and we expect to launch this service by the end of 2023.”
ELSA-d, short for End-of-Life Services by Astroscale Demonstration, will be operated from the National Facility at the Satellite Applications Catapult (SAC) at Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire.
“We will perform complex maneuvers to demonstrate the release and capture of this debris,” Auburn said.
The challenge of avoiding collisions between satellites and debris in space has been recognized by the UN
“This mission will pave the way for Astroscale to scale up our commercial debris removal services for satellite providers and government partners.”
Auburn said it will be the first semi-autonomous robotic magnetic recording of a piece of debris tumbling through space.
However, the mission will use advanced software and autonomous control technology, rather than being under full human control.
“Demonstrations like this have never been done in space before – they’re very different from, say, an astronaut operating a robotic arm on the International Space Station,” Astroscale UK’s Jason Forshaw told New Scientist.
With the launch of tens of thousands of satellites over the next few years, space debris is endangering “a thriving space ecosystem,” Astroscale says.
According to ESA, there are 34,000 pieces of space debris longer than 10 cm, and another 130,000 pieces of space debris smaller than this.
A collision with space debris can have a major impact on satellite services that people rely on every day
It estimates that there have been more than 560 break-ups, explosions, collisions or anomalous events leading to fragmentation.
ESA performs about two ‘collision avoidance maneuvers’ per year with each of its spacecraft orbiting Earth.
While rocket launches have placed about 10,680 satellites in orbit since 1957, there are still about 6,250 in space, but only 3,700 are still operating.
“ A collision with debris in space can have a major impact on the many satellite services we rely on every day on Earth, from cell phones to online banking, ” said Dr. Alice Bunn, international director at the UK Space Agency, who licensed the license approved. for launch earlier this month.
“The UK is at the forefront of international efforts to clean up space debris as the largest investor in space security for the European Space Agency,” said Dr. Bunn.
Astroscale’s exciting ELSA-d mission is the world’s first commercial debris removal demonstration mission and will demonstrate how we can make space safer for all. ‘
WHAT IS SPACE JUNK? MORE THAN 170 MILLION PIECES OF DEAD SATELLITES, USED MISSILES AND PAINT FLAKES ARE ‘THREAT’ TO THE SPACE INDUSTRY
There are an estimated 170 million pieces of so-called ‘space junk’ – left after missions that could be the size of spent rocket stages or as small as flakes of paint – in orbit in addition to about $ 700 billion (£ 555 billion) of space infrastructure.
But only 22,000 are tracked, and with the fragments capable of traveling at speeds in excess of 27,000 mph, even tiny pieces of satellites can seriously damage or destroy them.
Traditional gripping methods don’t work in space, however, because suction cups don’t work in a vacuum and the temperatures are too low for substances such as tape and glue.
Grippers around magnets are useless because most of the debris in orbit around Earth is non-magnetic.
About 500,000 pieces of man-made debris (artist’s impression) are currently orbiting our planet, consisting of disused satellites, pieces of spacecraft and used rockets
Most of the proposed solutions, including rubble harpoons, require or cause a powerful interaction with the rubble, allowing those objects to be pushed in unintended, unpredictable directions.
Scientists point to two events that have seriously exacerbated the problem of space junk.
The first was in February 2009, when an Iridium telecom satellite and Kosmos-2251, a Russian military satellite, accidentally collided.
The second was in January 2007, when China tested an anti-satellite weapon on an old Fengyun weather satellite.
Experts also pointed to two sites that have become worryingly cluttered.
One of these is low Earth orbit used by navigation satellites, the ISS, China’s manned missions, and the Hubble telescope, among others.
The other is in geostationary orbit and is used by communications, weather and surveillance satellites that must maintain a fixed position with respect to Earth.