Astroscale, a public orbital debris removal company based in Tokyo, Japan, is developing a type of “orbital tweezers” that will have the ability to “grab” old satellites and other types of debris, forcing them towards Earth to be destroyed in the atmosphere.
According to some estimates, there are around a thousand tonnes of rubbish in orbit, a threat to active satellites and space stations.
In addition to Astroscale, EX-Fusion, a laser nuclear fusion company, also plans to place a high-powered laser inside an EOS observatory near Canberra (Australia) and then fire it intermittently at pieces of space junk in Earth orbit that are less than ten centimetres long.
The company hopes that this will slow down the rate at which space junk descends, causing it to burn up as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
Source: Sapo
