Space Debris – Spaceflight Now

Intelsat declares drifting satellite total loss

April 22, 2019

Intelsat has declared the Intelsat 29e communications satellite a total loss after the Boeing-built spacecraft suffered a fuel leak and shed debris in geostationary orbit, three years into a planned 15-year mission.

Stricken with fuel leak, Intelsat 29e seen drifting in geostationary orbit

April 15, 2019

A Boeing-built Intelsat communications satellite launched three years ago is drifting in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator after suffering a fuel leak and releasing debris fragments last week, according to an analysis by space surveillance experts.

Experimental British satellite tests harpoon in orbit

February 15, 2019

A British satellite released from the International Space Station last year has successfully demonstrated a harpoon that could be used on future missions to clean up space debris, officials announced Friday.

Space junk clean-up demonstrator deployed from space station

June 26, 2018

A small satellite assembled in Britain has been released from the International Space Station, commencing a standalone mission to test technology and techniques that could be used to capture and de-orbit space junk in low Earth orbit.

Chinese space lab burns up on re-entry over Pacific Ocean

April 2, 2018

China’s Tiangong 1 space lab, home to two astronaut crews in 2012 and 2013, fell back to Earth uncontrolled Sunday, likely burning up over the Pacific Ocean as satellite trackers monitored the module’s gradual descent from orbit.

Q&A with Guglielmo Aglietti, RemoveDebris principal investigator (members only)

April 2, 2018

Guglielmo Aglietti is the director of the Surrey Space Center in Britain, and he leads a team of scientists and engineers who developed an experiment named RemoveDebris to demonstrate techniques to approach, capture and remove space junk from orbit.

Eliminating space junk could take step toward reality with station cargo launch

April 1, 2018

European engineers who developed a small satellite hitching a ride to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX supply ship Monday are gearing up for a first-of-a-kind experiment to examine ways to snare a chunk of space junk and tug it back to Earth.

Photos: Falcon 9 lifts off from Cape Canaveral, returns for landing

December 20, 2017

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket closed out a busy 2017 Cape Canaveral launch schedule on Dec. 15 with a successful liftoff on a space station resupply mission. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster, making its second launch, returned to Florida’s Space Coast for an on-target landing.

Station astronauts begin unpacking refurbished SpaceX cargo craft

December 18, 2017

A SpaceX-owned supply ship arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday with 2.4 tons of cargo, including space debris and solar energy monitors mounted in the Dragon spacecraft’s external payload bay and more than 3,400 pounds of gear inside its reused pressurized module.

Video: Dragon capsule arrives at space station

December 18, 2017

Closing out a two-day pursuit following launch from Cape Canaveral, a reused SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station Sunday with more than 4,800 pounds of supplies and experiments.