CLEARING UP THE MESS IN SPACE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

There’s a lot of rubbish in space. More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris, or “space junk,” are currently tracked by space surveillance. Much more debris – too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions –exists in the near-Earth space environment, according to NASA.

Since both the debris and spacecraft are traveling at extremely high speeds, an impact of even a tiny piece of orbital debris with a spacecraft could create big problems.

Astroscale Ltd, based at Harwell and the first private company aiming to clean up space, has received £1.7 million in funding from the UK Space Agency to continue developing its technology to remove defunct satellites from Low Earth Orbit. This latest mission phase of the Cleaning Outer Space Mission through Innovative Capture (COSMIC) will harness Astroscale’s robotic debris capture capabilities.

Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said: “With 1,700 satellites launched last year alone, the need to safeguard space for the benefit of everyone on Earth has never been more pressing.”

Astroscale has selected a small number of potential UK satellites currently in congested orbit to capture and remove, two of which will be identified for removal during this latest Phase B of the mission.

Nick Shave, Managing Director of Astroscale Ltd, said: “Building a UK on-orbit servicing economy will help us to deliver the government’s ambitious plans to develop a sustainable space environment. We can make on-orbit debris removal and satellite servicing routine by 2030.”

The COSMIC mission will be developed in collaboration with 10 UK-based partner companies.

Astroscale employs more than 250 people, of which more than three-quarters are engineers. The company has its headquarters in Japan and subsidiaries in the USA, Israel and Singapore as well as Oxfordshire, where it has just moved into a new satellite manufacturing and operations facility at Harwell Campus.

Oxford Space Systems wins Norwegian contract to deliver deployable o set reflector antenna

Oxford Space Systems, a specialist in designing and manufacturing deployable antennas for space, has signed a contract with Surrey Satellite Technology to deliver a Synthetic Aperture Radar antenna for the Space Norway MicroSAR satellite system.

The contract includes the manufacture of an antenna to support the launch of the first satellite in early 2025.

The Space Norway mission will provide maritime surveillance for Norwegian Armed Forces and will also deliver maritime surveillance for the global market.

Oxford Space Systems will manufacture the radar antenna in its facility at Harwell.

Sean Sutcliffe, Oxford Space Systems’ CEO, said: “This contract is a milestone for the company’s growth strategy and another achievement for one of our key products which will be a gamechanger for future Smallsat radar missions.”