Earth-orbit ‘sweeper’ proposed
Summary
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
More than 17,000 pieces of space debris are floating around the Earth
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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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Vocabulary
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- messy
untidy
- space junk
fragments of space travel leftovers that encircle the Earth
- a hand's breadth
the width from thumb to little finger of a hand spread open
- manned space missions
spaceships with astronauts on board
- threats
items that could cause a collision
- skip
move between the objects
- harmlessly
not causing any damage
- orbital housekeeper
device that circles the Earth and 'cleans' the area
- straightforward solution
uncomplicated answer to the problem
- unusable
unfit to use
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