A mining company based in China has created a prototype of a robot that may help to remove space debris.
The startup launched the 30kg robot known as NEO-01 will be launched into the low Earth orbit where it will be deployed to catch space debris and grill it.
The company used Long March, a Chinese government rocket to launch the robot. Xinhua reported that the robot will be deployed to monitor smaller bodies in deep space and to try out a new method of removing space debris using a large net to capture it and then burning it with an electric propulsion structure.
Besides the 3,000 defunct satellites that are still orbiting the earth, there are also bits of space debris in the millions.
This debris is hazardous because it is capable of causing damage if it impacts the earth at a high velocity. The space junk comprises nuts, paint flecks, frozen satellite coolant, bolts, as well as rocket parts, and astronaut tools.
Space agencies, private companies, and lawmakers have been debating on what to do with the menace of space debris that has built up over the years. These discussions have given rise to several suggestions, including using active space cleanup operations carried out by satellites fitted with claws, magnets, or nets, as well as charging orbital use levies.
The startup that developed the NEO-01 robot is called Origin Space and is based in Shenzen, China. Origin Space styles itself as the first company in China that is dedicated to the exploration and exploitation of space resources.
There is hope that NEO-01 will be the first of many technological developments in the area of asteroid mining.
Company founder Su Meng told Chinese state media that Origin Space wants to eventually launch dozens of spacecraft, including space telescopes with the view of achieving the premier commercial asteroid mining service by 2045.
Since Planetary Resources launched in the US in 2019 as the first company dedicated to asteroid mining, a dozen more similar companies have come up.
Planet Resources was bought out by ConsenSys, a blockchain company after encountering financial difficulties.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty does not allow any nation to claim possession of celestial bodies or outer space, but it does leave room for the extraction of space resources for commercial use.
US President Barack Obama signed into law a provision for American companies to own resources mined from celestial bodies.
NASA announced that it was carrying out mining on the moon last year. The organization would endeavor to buy rock and dirt mined from the moon’s rocky surface, known as lunar regolith which private companies extract.
NASA wants this to go towards establishing norms of doing business in space that may be compared to such business in the oceans of the earth.
Such international standards for doing business would allow astronauts to make money by creating rocket fuel using ice or building landing pads using moon rock.