The UK plans to send a mission into Earth orbit in 2026 to try to capture two retired national satellites and burn them up in our planet’s atmosphere. The goal is to prove that a single spacecraft is capable of removing more than one piece of space debris.
Three companies are vying for a total contribution of £5 million (nearly R$32 million) to develop the proposals: ClearSpace, Astroscale and Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL); Only two of them will be selected to participate in the development fund, and only one will carry out the mission, with a contract worth up to 60 million pounds sterling (about 383 million Brazilian reals).
Each company proposes a different way to carry out the mission: Astroscale, for example, wants to use one robotic arm to grab each satellite, while Clearspace plans to use four to “cradle” the objects and bring them into the atmosphere. SSTL is investigating the possibility of using a large network to grab one satellite and pull another with a robotic arm.
Currently, there are more than a dozen potential “rescue” satellites, and the pair that will be the mission’s target has not yet been determined. There are no major legal hurdles for countries with plans for their own satellites, but in the UK’s case, there are some issues that need to be resolved with the bloc’s Civil Aviation Authority before it can go ahead with the mission.
The project has the largest financial support ever allocated to a single space mission, and should lead to more initiatives of this kind in the future. “We are trying to accelerate the development of these technologies,” said Jacob Geer of the UK Space Agency. “We will send a satellite to remove two objects; “This is an important step for everyone, not just the UK.”
source: new world
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