There are satellite launches almost every day. How to deal with the space junk after the satellite is retired?

Russia is planning to send nuclear-powered spacecraft to the moon, Venus and Jupiter. The Russian Federal Space Agency announced that its "Space Tugboat" is scheduled to be launched in 2030 and begin to perform interstellar missions. When these launched satellites or spacecraft are retired or aged, a large amount of space junk and space debris will be produced. Space debris mainly includes debris generated during the launching and operation of spacecraft and launch vehicles, scrapped spacecraft and its components, surface shedding of spacecraft in operation, escaped objects, etc. , as well as solid waste and debris generated by the explosion and impact of rockets and spaceships.

Space junk trucks may start picking up scrapped satellites in 2024. Commercial space cleaning service may be ready in 2024. Astroscale, a Japanese-based space service company, recently launched the ELSA-d space debris removal demonstrator, which may be ready to clean up the chaos in Earth orbit before 2024.

The company has offices in Britain, the United States, Israel and Singapore, and signed a $3.5 million agreement with OneWeb, which may become a giant constellation operator, to promote debris removal technology. OneWeb currently operates more than 180 satellites in a constellation, aiming to reach about 650 satellites, but has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve 6,300 satellites in its "second phase" strategy. OneWeb is partly owned by the British government.

The plans of OneWeb, Space Exploration Technology Company and Amazon to launch thousands of satellite constellations have aroused serious concern in the global space flight community, because the already chaotic orbital environment may become too crowded. Satellite operators have reported that more and more two satellites are close to collision. The cooperation between OneWeb and Astroscale may help alleviate some concerns.

The partnership with OneWeb shows their commitment to space sustainability, and it is the next step towards mature technology to develop a comprehensive debris removal service by 2024. This new service for constellation operators is called ELSA-M. The company plans to remove multiple retired satellites in one mission, thus reducing costs for customers. The orbital garbage collector will push each satellite into the atmosphere to burn, and then return to the next disintegrated debris.

The key rendezvous and close-range operation technologies and functions extend beyond ELSA-d, thus providing end-of-life services for a series of constellation customers. . At the same time, we are developing the next generation docking board (DP), which is suitable for customers before it is launched, and its design purpose is to enable service providers to seize customers. We encourage constellation customers to adjust DP according to future needs. When a satellite needs to be dismantled due to failure, end of life or future on-orbit maintenance, its satellite shall be verified.

The ELSA-d demonstration mission of Astroscale in low Earth orbit will carry out a series of rendezvous and close-range debris capture and release operations this summer. The results of testing activities will provide information for the further work of ELSA-M plan. The fund is part of the European Space Agency (ESA) project entitled "Sunrise", which developed a flexible and reprogrammable communication system.