A new spaceship designed to clean up space has been unveiled.
A mission to show how technology could be used to help clean up space junk blasted off on 20 March.
The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that there are around 9,200 tonnes of space junk floating above Earth. This can cause alot of problems to space crafter and satellites.
The End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration (ELSA-d) will launched from Kazakhstan. However, it is going to be controlled from a UK base in Oxfordshire.
The new satellite will chase down the space junk and capture it using large magnets.
Since 1957 an estimated 10,680 satellites have been put into the Earth’s orbit. Currently, around 6,250 are still in space, but only 3,700 are still working.
Space junk can cause problems for astronauts living and working in space, like on the International Space Station (ISS) as it can travel at speeds of more than 17,500 mph as it orbits the Earth, which could cause some serious damage if it hit the spacecraft.
6 Responses
wow I did not know that at all
wow nice
thats good
this is cool
Wow it so cool and amazing that will help save the planet and we will live forever
thats very interesting its like whats happening on earth with the pollution accept its in space this time around