Acerca de

Right now, there are over 3,000 satellites zooming around Earth above us. They help us do a lot of things, including tracking weather, taking pictures of Earth and far away galaxies, and helping us communicate with people on the other side of the planet. But not everything in space is useful. Space is also full of junk; dead satellites, parts of rockets, tools astronauts lost during spacewalks and much more smaller pieces of debris. These bits of junk are travelling so fast that they can destroy a spacecraft if they bump into it, or seriously injure our astronauts. Even tiny dust particles or flecks of paint act like tiny bullets.  

​

We're all trying to do our bit to try and clean up space, starting with making sure that new satellites aren't abandoned in space. Team LEOniDAS are building drag sails, which slow down the satellites and cause them to fall towards Earth. As they get closer to Earth, and the atmosphere gets denser, they start to get really hot and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. A company called ClearSpace is working with the European Space Agency to build a satellite that will use robotic arms to grab onto dead satellites and remove them from space. RemoveDERBIS is trying to do the same thing, but they'll be using a harpoon to catch the satellites.