To reduce the amount of space waste, a Japanese company thinks it has found the solution: deorbit objects so that they go to die in the Earth’s atmosphere.
If humanity has been sending objects into space for several decades, many of them have remained there. This creates bewildering pollution at the edges of the Earth, whose orbit is littered with man-made objects. It is also a danger to astronauts and to humanity’s most important devices, such as the ISS.
This is a problem known by space agencies and companies, which are looking for several solutions. This is the case of Astroscale, a Japanese company which revealed in a video published on June 12, 2023 on its YouTube channel how it intends to settle this question. And it will be based on the ELSA-M (End Of Life Services by Astroscale – Multiples). The company presents him as the “ the world’s leading multi-relocation service provider “.
Codename: ELSA-M
With the ELSA-M, Astroscale acquires a new satellite capable of tracking satellites at the end of their life. And its mission does not stop there. The satellite must also capture them to stop their orbit (which mostly wander aimlessly) and send them into the Earth’s atmosphere. A simple strategy, which allows space objects to disintegrate.
As the video shows, the ELSA-M is designed to approach the end-of-life space object and inspect it. As soon as this is done, it makes its fall speed match that of the object, in order to align itself and moor to it. Subsequently, the ELSA-M will lower the orbit of the targeted object using its thrusters, before releasing it on a trajectory that will send it towards the Earth’s atmosphere. There, it will be burned and will repatriate a lesser amount of waste to Earth.
On the Astroscale side, we hope to send the ELSA-M into low Earth orbit as early as 2025. It will be tested on a OneWeb satellite, equipped with a magnetic docking plate. And if the test is conclusive, Astroscale will be able to reuse its satellite. This is also one of the strengths of the ELSA-M, which is intended to be reusable. He will thus be able, without returning to Earth, to repeat the operation with another space object, and this several times.
Space pollution, a real problem
The innovation presented by Astroscale seems promising. But itself is not invulnerable to other space debris with an unpredictable trajectory, which could damage the ELSA-M in the event of a collision. Spatial pollution is such in some areas that they have become impassable.
The situation is also tending to get worse, with the arrival in the sector of private companies that want to intensify “space traffic”, such as SpaceX. However, we will have to find several ways to clean up all this and think about even more important space cleaning missions, in order to continue to explore it in the future.
