European Agency Woos SpaceX to Help Clean Up 'Space Litter'

Thought Question: If you could design a mission to explore or clean up space, what kind of project would you create, and why would it be important to you?

The European Space Agency (ESA) may enlist Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to help clean up so-called space junk. That's the name given to non-working satellites and other crafts still hovering around Earth and clogging up its inner orbit.

Josef Aschbacher is the director general of the ESA. He told Reuters that the ESA is making more efforts to rid Earth's orbit of space litter. Much of it remains in the way of current missions. The ESA is now in talks with SpaceX, he said.

Failed satellites or pieces of older craft pose threats to manned missions or working satellites. Space trackers say they are seeing more close calls between spacecraft. They say that is simply because Earth's orbit has become so crowded. About 18,897 pieces of trackable trash are floating in Earth’s orbit, Jonathan McDowell told Reuters. He's a Harvard astronomer.    

Aschbacher said 110 countries or government groups have joined ESA's Zero Debris charter. It's all part of an effort to prevent any new litter from being added to orbit by 2030. Aschbacher told Reuters that the charter keeps changing with the times. “We will keep raising the topics because they are so fundamental." 

SpaceX now owns roughly two-third of all active satellites in Earth’s low orbit. About 6,300 of the 10,300 active satellites in that orbit are part of SpaceX's fast-growing Starlink project. That's according to the US Space Force.  

Others are racing to join SpaceX, though. They include China and US-based Amazon. China has sent thousands of satellites into orbit. And Amazon says it will launch over 3,000 satellites. They will be part of its Kuiper project in the coming years. Aschbacher said Amazon has signed the ESA charter.      

Gif of space junk courtesy European Space Agency on GIPHY.