Britain’s first garbage truck for space could clear up junk with bear hug

Britain’s first garbage truck for space could clear up junk with a bear hug – or even the robotic equivalent of a litter-picker.

The two techniques are being proposed by companies competing for a UK contract to launch a clean-up mission as soon as 2026.

The winning prototype will track down and capture two defunct satellites, then cast them into the atmosphere where they will burn up.

There is growing alarm at the amount of debris spinning round the planet at 18,000mph. A collision with critical satellites could bring down everyday services, including telecommunications and GPS navigation.

Rory Holmes of ClearSpace, one of the competing companies, said: “For the last six decades we’ve been launching satellites into space without really thinking about what happens at the end of their life.

“We’re in a situation now where space is quite congested and all these different dead objects are whizzing around, criss-crossing each other’s paths, sometimes colliding, and sometimes really getting in the way of what we want to be doing in space.”