OrbitalHub

ESA dixit:

“Don’t be scared of space debris. ESA’s Clean Space initiative is carrying out preparatory activities to build a test mission to take a single, large and heavy item of debris out of orbit.”

Video Credit: ESA

The three main objectives of ESA’s Clean Space initiative. ESA works hard to keep space safe and clean for future generations.

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Video credit: ESA

NASA Goddard dixit:

“In 2018, NASA will intensify its focus on one of the most critical but remote parts of our changing planet with the launch of two new satellite missions and an array of airborne campaigns. GRACE-FO and ICESat-2 will use radically different techniques to observe how the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are changing over time and how much they are contributing to sea level rise.

The space agency is launching these missions at a time when decades of observations from the ground, air, and space have revealed signs of change in Earth’s ice sheets, sea ice, glaciers, snow cover, and permafrost. Collectively, scientists call these frozen regions of our planet the “cryosphere.”

Music: Pending News by Christian Telford

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/LK Ward

ESA dixit:

“Through its Clean Space initiative, ESA is pioneering an eco-friendly approach to space activities. On the ground, that means adopting greener industrial materials, processes and technologies. In space, it means preserving Earth’s orbital environment as a safe zone, free of debris.

In the modern world, the quest to be environmentally friendly has been transforming the competitive landscape, as eco-friendly design turns into a new frontier of innovation. ESA is embracing this trend. Information on the environmental impact of Agency activities is, and will be, increasingly requested by ESA’s industrial, institutional and international partners, under pressure from customers, stakeholders and citizens.

Numerous analyses worldwide have shown the need for space debris removal, to contend with the proliferation of space debris. The only way to preserve key orbits for future use is to shrink the current amount of debris in absolute terms, which will require novel technologies and approaches for the removal of debris and the design of non-debris creating missions.

There is also substantial industrial potential: companies and organisations that take swift action towards meeting emerging regulations will obtain the competitive advantage of being first into the market. By fostering innovation, Clean Space aims to turn environmental challenges into opportunities for European space industry, to ensure a safer and cleaner environment both on Earth and in space.”

Video credit: ESA

Planetary Resources dixit:

“Asteroid mining is the key to our future expansion into space.

Planetary Resources is conducting the first commercial exploration of resources on near Earth asteroids.

The first resource that we’re interested in is water. Water, when you break it down into the elements Hydrogen and Oxygen, is rocket fuel – currently the best way to get around the Solar System.

In much the same way that the economic activity on Earth is enabled by fossil fuels, in space, we will have a water-based economy. The Earth’s gravity well is so deep that the cost of bringing propellant from Earth to fuel that economy in space will be prohibitive.”

Read more about how asteroid mining is the key to our future expansion into space.

Video credit: Planetary Resources

ESA dixit:

“As a result of a deep cracking cutting across the Larsen C ice shelf, a huge iceberg was spawned on 12 July 2017. Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission was used to monitor the rift’s progress, a network of fractures in the ice and the calving event. Since then, the large tabular iceberg – known as A68 – has drifted about 5 km from the ice shelf. Images from Sentinel-1 also show that a cluster of more than 11 smaller icebergs have now also formed, the largest of which is over 13 km long. These ‘bergy bits’ have broken off both the giant iceberg and the remaining ice shelf.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), reproduced from Hogg and Gudmundsson (2017)”

Video credit: ESA