00:03earth has a bit of a space junk problem in low orbit currently there are nearly 9500 active
00:09satellites floating up in space with myriad purposes and that's why orbital debris removal
00:14startup astroscale is looking to get their foot in the door with this a robot that is meant to
00:19travel up there and get rid of defunct satellites so do we really need what is essentially a space
00:24garbage program here's Nick shave director of astroscale to explain space debris is is a big
00:31problem for all of us on on earth basically since the start of the space age in 1957 we've had
00:37a
00:37throwaway culture in space we've put lots of objects in space and we've basically not removed them we've
00:43not recycled them or done anything else so there's 10,000 tons of debris in space you know near 40
00:49,000
00:49objects all floating around in different orbits the robot was built by Airbus with the company's
00:54head of advanced concepts calling the whole process a space ballet where the robot must first be sent
01:00into space via a rocket before it can make its way to the space debris and capture it the debris
01:05will
01:05then be lowered into Earth's atmosphere where it will burn up and experts say Earth orbit cleanup can't
01:10come soon enough as many worry about the Kessler effect or a chain reaction that could happen if
01:15space junk begins to run into each other creating a debris field that could destroy thousands of
01:20satellites currently doing their jobs
Comments