This Giant Claw Could Soon Clean Up Space Junk	November 30, 2020 at 1:20 pm
Cleaning up space to prevent collisons is a tall order, but the ESA has just funded a giant space claw that could show the way forward.
Here's what space debris does to the Kevlar shielding protecting the International Space Station	June 25, 2014 at 12:30 pm
If you've seen Gravity, you'll have noticed how a single piece of space debris can cause a cascade of destruction — the Kessler effect — that makes the entirety of space completely uninhabitable to spacecraft? Well, in the photo above, you can see the exit hole created by a tiny piece of aluminium space debris in a piece of Kevlar shielding — the same shielding that protects the manned modules of the International Space Station. Space debris is serious stuff.
NASA is building a robotic spacecraft refueling system, to prevent a Gravity-like orbital debris cascade	February 13, 2014 at 9:30 am
NASA is preparing to take the next logical step after in-flight refueling between two aircraft — robotic refueling of orbiting satellites. This could extend the lifetime of many satellites indefinitely, and could play a very important role in preventing a Gravity-like scenario, where fragments of a single satellite cause a cascade of debris that destroys almost every satellite in Earth orbit.
Japan is preparing to launch a giant magnetic net that will trawl space for junk	January 22, 2014 at 2:06 pm
Next month, Japan's space agency (JAXA) will launch a space trawler — a spacecraft that will drag a giant aluminium and steel net while orbiting Earth, hoping to bag itself some space junk. NASA tracks around 20,000 pieces of larger (5cm+) orbital debris, but there's an estimated 500,000 pieces of marble-sized, untrackable debris in orbit as well. If a single piece of space junk hits an orbiting, functional spacecraft, the collision is likely to be catastrophic — just like in the movie Gravity. If we don't get on top of orbital debris now, it's feared that one day the junk will be so dense that we won't be able to leave the surface of Earth without being smashed to pieces.
DARPA shows off satellite-scavenging Project Phoenix tech	January 23, 2013 at 8:00 am
According to DARPA, Project Phoenix, the would-be satellite scavenger program, is actually possible, using extant real-world extant technologies.
Declaring war on orbital space debris	October 26, 2012 at 6:59 am
Once something gets into the Earth's orbit it tends to stay there, even after its useful life has ended. That has led to the collection of vast amounts of space junk surrounding our planet and more than a few headaches for anyone tasked with launching or maintaining a satellite.
Frankensteinian, grave-robbing satellite to form new orbiters from dead equipment	October 21, 2011 at 11:05 am
Many people criticized the "liberal" statement about the future of life on Earth in the movie Wall-E, but Pixar's vision of the future is more accurate than people think. Right now there are 19,000 dead satellites and other pieces of space debris hurtling around the planet at the speed of a bullet. DARPA has proposed a Frankenstein robotic satellite to help alleviate the problem.