Gas stations or tugboats, the commitment to sustainability in the space ecosystem

“Gas stations” to replenish satellites and extend your life, “workshops” for the assembly and maintenance of ships, tugboats to remove failed or disused satellites or solar farms from which to capture energy; The industry is already involved in numerous projects to try to guarantee the sustainability of the space ecosystem.

The European Comission and the European Space Agency (ESA) work on a policy of ““zero waste” in space, and several Spanish companies are leading some of the technological developments that will be necessary to try to ensure that sustainability and that accessibility and permanence in space is not only more respectful of that “ecosystem”, also safer and cheaper.

Among the numerous missions that the world’s main space agencies have scheduled for the coming years, they stand out in this sense “ClearSpace” from ESA, whose launch is scheduled for 2025 and which will test a technology that aims for the first time to find, capture and “deorbit” disused satellites and space debris.

The similes that have been repeated in recent years to illustrate this problem are many, but the most graphic refers to how dangerous it would be to navigate the sea if all the ships that have been used throughout history remained floating on the sea. water.

Thousands of satellites and tons of garbage

The number of satellites that have been launched exceeds 17,000, of which about 11,500 are still in space and more than 9,000 are operational, and over the next few decades that number will multiply, with the consequent risks of contamination and danger of collision. what it entails, which is why space administrations and international organizations are planning various strategies and technological developments to reduce these risks.

Among these solutions, the “tugboats” that transport disused or failed satellites to the Earth’s atmosphere so that they disintegrate, transport them to a “cemetery orbit” much further away from the Earth and from the orbits where more ships are concentrated, or infrastructures that allow effective maintenance and allow their life to be extended.

To show the different technologies that are already being developed with a focus on that objective, the GMV Spain company – one of the main companies in the aerospace sector – has opened the room to a group of journalists. “dark” which houses the “Platform-Art” robotics laboratory and has shown the prototypes it has created for the elimination of space debris, the maintenance and assembly of ships in orbit or refueling.

The director of strategy and business development for Science, Exploration and Transport at GMV, Mariella Graziano, explained along with these devices the problems derived from that number of satellites, and to the risks of collision and contamination has added another important one: they can make it difficult and hinder the work of other missions whose objective is strictly scientific – such as telescopes – or those of surveillance, communications and Earth observation.

The majority of satellites and space missions, including Earth observation satellites that provide vital surveillance or security services, are located in the so-called “low earth orbit” (LEO, for its acronym in English), so those responsible for this company have stressed the importance of “clearing” that orbit and removing all the garbage and vehicles that are no longer operational.

Goal: zero waste

Graziano showed the prototype of a robotic satellite capable of capturing another ship and towing it into the atmosphere or to a “cemetery orbit” to eliminate failed or uncontrolled ships from space; or the assistant to provide services in orbit to other ships or to refuel them and thus extend their useful life when they are demonstrating high levels of efficiency.

The company’s facilities also house a robotic prototype for the assembly of large structures in orbit, which will reduce launch costs by reducing loads and proceed to the subsequent assembly of the parts in space, a team – with financing from the ESA- which will also be capable of providing maintenance, repair or updating services to other vehicles or space infrastructures.

The EU Competitiveness Council and ESA are already working on the future European Space Law, which aims to ensure the sustainability of all space activities and boost the competitiveness of European companies in this sector and in the development of technologies that will be necessary for this, and some of them are already demonstrating their effectiveness in experimental facilities in Spanish companies.

In the test bed that the GMV company has in the Madrid town of Tres Cantos, in Spain, the effectiveness of some of these technologies is being tested and verified, in line with the strategy of “zero-debris” (zero waste) from the European Space Agency.

ESA and the EU have promoted several initiatives and want to lead the sustainability of the space ecosystem worldwide, and are already preparing a new generation of Earth observation satellites that may be eliminated at the end of their useful life or in the event of failure.

Several of the satellites of the new generation of Earth observation missions promoted from Europe (belonging to the Copernicus program) are already governed by these requirements and are being equipped with the necessary mechanical devices to be captured, removed and eliminated from their orbit. when its operation ends, and the experimental facilities and robotics laboratories of the Spanish companies show how they will perform in the same conditions that they will find in space.

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