‘Responsible way to act’: Europe’s space agency attempts an assisted re-entry for retiring satellite

euronews (in English)

The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates there are 2,000 defunct spacecraft among a total of 10,000 spacecraft currently in space, a majority of which enter the Earth's atmosphere in a natural - rather than controlled - way.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 (upbeat music)

00:05 (upbeat music)

00:07 (upbeat music)

00:10 (upbeat music)

00:12 (upbeat music)

00:15 (upbeat music)

00:20 (upbeat music)

00:25 (upbeat music)

00:30 (upbeat music)

00:34 (upbeat music)

00:41 (upbeat music)

00:43 - At ESA we're convinced that this is the responsible way

00:48 to act.

00:50 We want to demonstrate if it works,

00:56 or at least that something can attempt to be done

00:59 to reduce an already very small risk

01:04 of it harming any body or anything.

01:09 But we would like to try to make it as safe as possible

01:12 for everyone.

01:13 And by attempting this with the current spacecraft design,

01:17 which was not meant, of course, for this purpose,

01:20 but there are still maybe some mitigations measures

01:23 that can be done to reduce even further any sort,

01:28 to make it safer in a nutshell.

01:30 (upbeat music)

01:33 (upbeat music)

01:36 (upbeat music)

01:39 (upbeat music)

01:43 Access to space is a very big, is very big now.

01:55 It's very open.

01:55 There's a lot of constellations being launched

01:59 and a lot of satellites up there.

02:00 And if we don't act in this sustainable and responsible way,

02:04 this is something that could get very quickly

02:08 get out of control.

02:09 So every agency, every industry,

02:14 every company that has access to space

02:16 should act responsibly.

02:19 And this is what we're trying to do to set an example

02:22 and not just with words, but with actions.

02:24 (upbeat music)

02:26 (upbeat music)

02:29 (upbeat music)

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended