NASA has a plan to clean up space junk, but is it going green enough?

Meanwhile, the European Space Agency and a private company called Clearspace plan to launch a spacecraft in 2026 that will use robotic arms to capture a 250-pound rocket part and tow it safely into the atmosphere, where it and the spacecraft both will be safe. burn out. According to the US Space Force, the rocket part they are targeting appears to have been hit by smaller debris itself last summer, further demonstrating the problem and the need for action.

America will certainly lead its own space debris cleanup missions, says NASA’s Melroy, but the agency still needs to further develop its space sustainability plan before making any major decisions. She is already familiar with numerous space cleanup concepts, having previously served at DARPA, an agency that explores far-flung ideas, including concepts for using harpoons, nets or an orbital catcher glove to capture debris in space.

NASA’s annual budgets ultimately depend on Congress, which cut the agency’s fiscal year 2024 budget by 2 percent. Mars sample return mission and other programs lose some funding. A debris clearance mission would be a major new investment.

NASA’s cost-benefit analysis shows that removing the top 50 objects of most concern in low Earth orbit – mostly derelict rocket bodies and other objects orbiting critical satellites – is expensive but worth it in the long run would be. According to that analysis, it would also make financial sense to develop lasers and other technologies that could be used to push debris out of harm’s way and avoid impending collisions.

But designing and deploying such technology to transport waste will take years, and scaling it up will take longer.

Next steps

Ultimately, getting rid of space junk is important now, but “active debris removal cannot be a silver bullet,” said Aaron Boley, a planetary scientist at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of the Outer Space Institute, a network of space experts . .

“I’m glad they’ve come out with this strategy for sustainability in space. There is still a lot of work to be done,” he says. For example, it is also necessary to change behavior because it is impossible to clean up the mess if people continue to pollute and leave more mess in the space.