MEXICO: There are thousands of satellites in Earth’s orbit, of varying age and usefulness. At some point they reach the end of their lives, at which point they become floating junk. What do we do with them then?
Most satellites are not designed with the end of their life in mind. But some are designed to be serviced—such as the Hubble Space Telescope, which as part of its final service was modified to include a soft capture mechanism. This is an interface designed to allow a future robotic spacecraft to attach itself and guide the telescope to safe disposal through burn-up in the Earth’s atmosphere once its operational life has ended.
Thinking about methods to retire satellites is important, because without proper disposal they become another source of space debris—fragments of old spacecraft, satellites, and rockets now orbiting Earth at thousands of miles per hour. These fragments travel so fast that even a piece the size of a coin has enough energy to disable a whole satellite. There are well over 100,000 pieces this size or larger already orbiting Earth, never mind much larger items—for example, the Progress unmanned cargo module, which Russian Space Agency mission controllers have lost control of, and which will orbit progressively lower until it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
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