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12 August 2011
The Space Age has left the Earth's orbit littered with debris that can endanger the life of astronauts and damage satellites. Now a researcher at the Italian Space Agency has proposed a series of automated 'sweepers' to start cleaning up.
Reporter:
Jason Palmer
Click to hear the report:
After a half century of successes in space, low-Earth orbit has become a very messy place.
More than 17,000 pieces of space junk bigger than a hand's breadth are floating around up there; the largest of them weighs nearly ten tonnes.
The debris poses a growing risk to communication satellites and occasionally manned space missions. As time goes on catastrophic collisions become more likely, which would create even more debris.
Marco Castronuovo has a simple plan to solve the problem, starting with the largest, heaviest threats. He's proposed sending up a robotic mission that will skip between chunks of junk, affixing a little rocket to each one that will drive them out of orbit. The debris would then burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere over an ocean.
Each orbital housekeeper could clean up five objects a year, and would be sent on a seven-year mission.
It's a slow but straightforward solution to a problem that could otherwise leave low-Earth orbit completely unusable.
Jason Palmer, BBC News
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untidy
fragments of space travel leftovers that encircle the Earth
the width from thumb to little finger of a hand spread open
spaceships with astronauts on board
items that could cause a collision
move between the objects
not causing any damage
device that circles the Earth and 'cleans' the area
uncomplicated answer to the problem
unfit to use
To take away: