Space isn’t so empty these days.
There are millions of pieces of debris orbiting the Earth,
including rocket remnants and dead satellites
They travel at up to 17,500 miles an hour,
10 times faster than a bullet.
And a piece of debris as small as a marble,
can cause catastrophic damage, as shown here in the movie Gravity.
But Miki Ito is leading a team of engineers in Tokyo
to develop spacecrafts which could solve that problem.
This one is a mockup of ELSA-d.
Future satellites will be launched with a special magnetic plate
which ELSA-d can connect to.
The magnetic plates are fitted to satellites before they are sent into space.
When a satellite fails or needs replacing after five to ten years
ELSA-d will be launched to remove it.
Equipped with cameras and range sensors,
ELSA-d will identify the dead satellite’s position, approach it, then capture it with magnets
and bring it down to the Earth’s atmosphere where they will burn up together.
Then a new satellite can go up to the same orbit to replace the old one.
With less risk of being destroyed by space debris.
Miki started to be interested in space when she was a teenager.
She went on to study aerospace engineering at university
and then worked as a satellite engineer for a government-sponsored program for five years.
In 2015, she joined Astroscale -
which describes itself as the world's only startup
with a mission to deal with space debris.
As to be expected, the ELSA-d comes with a big price tag,
costing tens of millions of dollars.
The team is planning a demonstration mission in early 2020
to test out ELSA-d in space.
Although last year, their mission to send up another spacecraft went wrong
when the rocket failed and crashed into the sea.