Japanese engineers develop plan to clean up space junk with a laser-pulsing satellite

There are an estimated 170 million pieces of so-called ‘space junk’ – left behind after missions that can be as big as spent rocket stages or as small as paint flakes – in orbit alongside some US$700 billion (£555bn) of space infrastructure. But only 22,000 are tracked, and with the fragments able to travel at … Read more

Japanese engineers develop plan to clean up space junk with a laser-pulsing satellite

There are an estimated 170 million pieces of so-called ‘space junk’ – left behind after missions that can be as big as spent rocket stages or as small as paint flakes – in orbit alongside some US$700 billion (£555bn) of space infrastructure. But only 22,000 are tracked, and with the fragments able to travel at … Read more