Japan comes face to face with its own space junk - BBC News

A Tokyo company's satellite encounters a big lump of space debris high above the Earth.

6 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, ASTROSCALEImage caption, The old rocket segment comes into view about 600km above the EarthBy Jonathan AmosScience correspondent@BBCAmosA satellite operated by Japanese company Astroscale has chased down a 15 year-old piece of space junk and taken an up-close image of it.

The object is a discarded rocket segment that's about 11m by 4m (36ft by 15ft), with a mass of three tonnes.

It's the first time anyone has managed to rendezvous with so big a piece of space debris.

Astroscale is developing a business that would offer to remove others' redundant hardware from orbit.

It won't do it on this occasion; the current mission is all about testing the sensors and software needed for safe proximity operations. But a determined effort to pull a lump of junk out of the sky should occur in the next couple of years, the firm says.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68903801

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