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  • How to get rid of space debris

    A project that will test several technologies capable of collecting the cosmic trash and returning it to the Earth's atmosphere.

Mankind generates waste everywhere it goes, and space is not free of this bad habit, either. Rocket casings, satellite remnants, pieces of metal and glass… those are the cosmic debris which have been orbiting around the Earth since the quest to conquer the outer rim began. More than 7,000 tons of rubble which could crash with active satellites or jeopardize aerospace missions.

In hopes of tackling this, the Surrey Space Centre will launch RemoveDebris earlier this year, a project that will test several technologies capable of collecting cosmic garbage and put it back into the Earth’s atmosphere. The programme will try two different systems. The first one is based on a fishnet of sorts dragged by a spaceship, which will catch the rubble in order to bring it back to Earth. When re-entering the atmosphere the majority of this waste will burn out, and the rest will be directed until alighting. The second one consists of a solar sail, a scheme conceived years ago by astrophysicist and writer Carl Sagan, which could be implemented in order to drag garbage out of the Earth´s orbit and make it fall in a spiral way towards the atmosphere.

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