Chris Blackerby spends a lot of time thinking about junk — specifically, “space junk” or “cosmic debris.”
He does so for good reason: There are more than 9,000 satellites orbiting the Earth right now and by 2030 there will be an estimated 60,000. And while the earth’s orbit is huge, it’s already home to a lot of junk that can interfere with a $300 billion space economy that provides communications, weather information and global positioning information to the world below.
With Elon Musk’s Starlink planning to launch at least another 4,000 more into orbit and Shanghai Spacecom Satellite beginning construction of a 12,000 satellite constellation of its own, Blackerby, COO of orbital services startup Astroscale, has a lot on his mind. And the rate at which the number of objects in the skies is growing makes it more pressing, he added. It’s something he wouldn’t have thought about a decade ago, when there were fewer than 1,200 active satellites in orbit.
“When Astroscale started almost 11 years ago,” he said, “I was working for NASA and I was like, ‘Who’s going to make money off of this? Nobody’s thinking about that.”
It’s not just active satellites that pose space traffic problems. There are derelict satellites as well. And satellites destroyed by anti-satellite weaponry. And remnants of old rocket launches. And space mission debris — tools lost during spacewalks, even crystallized astronaut urine. Satellites destroyed by collisions with this stuff create even more debris — all of it orbiting the earth at speeds in excess of 22,000 miles per hour. All of this makes some astrophysicists worry about the theoretical scenario called the Kessler effect, in which an endless Michael Bay-style chain reaction of collisions destroys so many satellites that the resulting debris field makes doing anything in space nearly impossible (including satellite communications, weather forecasting and GPS, not to mention Elon Musk’s dream to one day die on Mars).
“Every day that’s what we’re thinking about, and the concern about whether it’s already started,” Blackerby told Forbes. His company just hit a major milestone on its mission to develop technology that can clear space junk out of orbit into Earth’s atmosphere, where it can burn up safely. On Sunday, the Japan-based company successfully launched its ADRAS-J satellite, a first test of its technology paid for by the Japanese Space Agency to clear out one of its old rockets.
Over the course of the next few days, the ADRAS-J satellite will make its way towards an old upper stage rocket left behind in 2009. This particular piece of space junk is about the size of a tractor trailer and there’s no easy way to get it out of orbit. But while it’s up there, it has a risk of colliding with active satellites or accidentally breaking up and becoming a bigger risk. This isn’t a theoretical concern — in 2022, another rocket stage of the same model collapsed into 23 pieces that are still circling the planet, each a hazard to other spacecraft.
The ADRAS-J is loaded with an array of digital and infrared cameras, lidar and other sensors it will use to assess that abandoned rocket stage. It will take its measurements, determine how fast it’s spinning and evaluate its structural integrity. Astroscale will then use that data to inform a second mission, this time with a spacecraft equipped with robotic arms that will shove the debris towards Earth’s atmosphere where it will harmlessly burn up.
If Astroscale manages to pull this off, it will be the first time anyone has done so. The company’s been working towards this milestone since its founding in 2013, the first in a business that it hopes will someday also include the refueling and repair of existing satellites. It has raised nearly $383 million in capital to date in service of that.
It’s not alone. Pitchbook estimates that startups focused on space debris have raised over $860 million since 2015. Meanwhile, the number of venture investments in the sector annually is accelerating. There were 10 in 2021, 13 in 2022 and 18 in 2023. Some new companies are Astroscale rivals working on their own solutions to de-orbit satellites. Others like California-based Leolabs, are building the infrastructure needed to help satellites navigate around space junk.
Despite the increase in deals, this is still early days. Space industry analyst Chris Quilty told Forbes that the market will need a push to get people to spend money on businesses like the ones Astroscale is building, which will likely be a combination of pressure from both the risk from increased numbers of satellites and from governments on the ground. In the short term at least, the funds for such space junk clearing missions will likely also come from governments. “There has to be an industry consensus that this is something that has to happen,” he said. “And secondarily, you have to have the regulatory requirements to actually bring this industry into existence.”
For his part, Blackerby thinks it’s crucial that more attention be paid to the problem of space debris. It’s only going to get worse. For him, it’s really just a question of whether the technology will be ready in time. “Now we’re just in a race to see who’s going to be able to get there,” he said. “And are we going to be able to meet the need quickly enough for what’s going to come.”
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