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00:07 Millions of pieces of man-made debris are currently orbiting the Earth.
00:12 This huge cloud of space junk is suspended between 800 and 2000 km above us.
00:17 Since space exploration began in 1957,
00:20 fragments from more than 6,000 space launches and 600 orbital explosions have been accumulating.
00:26 Old rockets, out-of-order satellites, tools lost by astronauts,
00:30 and even flecks of paint pose a serious threat to future space exploration,
00:34 particularly manned flights and stations.
00:37 Sensors carried on space vehicles only tend to detect micro-debris,
00:41 but damage from a collision can be serious due to the very fast orbital speed of this debris,
00:45 travelling at some 28,000 km/h.
00:48 The International Space Station, for example, has had to perform avoidance manoeuvres around 30 times,
00:52 and astronauts have had to take refuge 5 times.
00:55 There is also the risk of debris slamming into the hundreds of Earth observation and telecommunications satellites which orbit the Earth.
01:01 Billions of dollars worth of weather monitoring equipment, global navigation, and communication systems are at risk.
01:07 The big fear is of a collision occurring and triggering a chain reaction, known as the Kessler syndrome.
01:12 Over 30,000 pieces of debris measuring more than 10 cm, and sometimes as big as a bus,
01:17 are currently being tracked and followed from Earth by radars and telescopes.
01:21 Space agencies are working on debris recovery systems.
01:25 Nets, harpoons, sails, everything is envisaged to deal with the risk of collision.
01:29 In 2025, ESA is due to launch the Clear Space Mission,
01:33 a sort of satellite cleaner that will use its articulated arms to recover a piece of an old European rocket and de-orbit it.
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