ESA's mission tomitigate the environmental impacts on low-Earth orbit from mankind'srelentless march into space has entered a new phase, ahead of itsmake-or-break review before the ESA's Council of Ministers inDecember 2016. The e.Deorbit program would launch multiple debris-seeking probes into orbit each year, tasked with the removal ofdefunct satellites and other potentially hazardous man-made objectsfrom low-Earth orbit.

Currently, there isstill very little chance of two satellites colliding. However, as weincrease our presence in space those odds will inevitably go up, andwhen such a collision does occur, it has the potential to create acatastrophic chain reaction.

This was the case backin 2009 when a collision between satellites Iridium 33 andKosmos-2251 created a cloud of smaller debris that lead to acollision warning for the ISS only last year. If it hadn't been forthe presence of ESA's ATV Georges Lemaître, which succeeded inpushing the station out of harm's way, the debris could have damagedthe station, and possibly even led to a loss of life.

Accidents such as this,and unchecked proliferation of man-made debris, could eventuallyresult in low-Earth orbit becoming all but unusable. This scenario isknown as the Kessler syndrome.

Steps are already beingtaken to avoid this eventuality. For example, newly manufacturedsatellites must operate with a contingency to put them out of harm'sway at the end of their operational lives, either by pushingthemselves into a seldom-used graveyard orbit, or simply byde-orbiting themselves.

However pre-existingderelict satellites and the upper stages of launch vehicles representa significant problem, one that 2.Deorbit hopes to tackle.Officially, the project has moved from Phase-A to Phase-B1, which isESA's way of saying that it is now in the process of getting thesatellite design finished up and ready for production.

"I am very pleasedwith the progress we are making," states project manager fore.Deorbit, Robin Biesbroek. "In this phase we willreally go into detail on the concept of operations, e.Deorbit’ssubsystems design, and especially the capture and deorbit phases."

The design for thesatellite is currently far from finalized, and the agency and itspartners have yet to decide on just how the probe will grapple with,and dispose of, potentially harmful chunks of debris. This said, ESAhas announced its intent to use the upper stage of a Vega rocket asthe platform for the satellite, and has now ruled out using aharpoon-based system to capture the space junk. This leaves snaringthe debris via a weighted net, or grabbing it with a robotic arm asthe remaining options for the final design.

Source: ESA

ESA's mission tomitigate the environmental impacts on low-Earth orbit from mankind'srelentless march into space has entered a new phase, ahead of itsmake-or-break review before the ESA's Council of Ministers inDecember 2016. The e.Deorbit program would launch multiple debris-seeking probes into orbit each year, tasked with the removal ofdefunct satellites and other potentially hazardous man-made objectsfrom low-Earth orbit.

Currently, there isstill very little chance of two satellites colliding. However, as weincrease our presence in space those odds will inevitably go up, andwhen such a collision does occur, it has the potential to create acatastrophic chain reaction.

This was the case backin 2009 when a collision between satellites Iridium 33 andKosmos-2251 created a cloud of smaller debris that lead to acollision warning for the ISS only last year. If it hadn't been forthe presence of ESA's ATV Georges Lemaître, which succeeded inpushing the station out of harm's way, the debris could have damagedthe station, and possibly even led to a loss of life.

Accidents such as this,and unchecked proliferation of man-made debris, could eventuallyresult in low-Earth orbit becoming all but unusable. This scenario isknown as the Kessler syndrome.

Steps are already beingtaken to avoid this eventuality. For example, newly manufacturedsatellites must operate with a contingency to put them out of harm'sway at the end of their operational lives, either by pushingthemselves into a seldom-used graveyard orbit, or simply byde-orbiting themselves.

However pre-existingderelict satellites and the upper stages of launch vehicles representa significant problem, one that 2.Deorbit hopes to tackle.Officially, the project has moved from Phase-A to Phase-B1, which isESA's way of saying that it is now in the process of getting thesatellite design finished up and ready for production.

"I am very pleasedwith the progress we are making," states project manager fore.Deorbit, Robin Biesbroek. "In this phase we willreally go into detail on the concept of operations, e.Deorbit’ssubsystems design, and especially the capture and deorbit phases."

The design for thesatellite is currently far from finalized, and the agency and itspartners have yet to decide on just how the probe will grapple with,and dispose of, potentially harmful chunks of debris. This said, ESAhas announced its intent to use the upper stage of a Vega rocket asthe platform for the satellite, and has now ruled out using aharpoon-based system to capture the space junk. This leaves snaringthe debris via a weighted net, or grabbing it with a robotic arm asthe remaining options for the final design.

Source: ESA