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fliptop writes:

Space companies want to remove their junk from orbit - but that's easier said than done:

Every once in a while, a piece of space junk hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes into Earth. Just last month, a 23-ton chunk of space debris fell – safely, thankfully – into the south-central Pacific Ocean. The debris came from the October 31 launch of China's Long March 5B rocket, which has been notorious for its uncontrolled returns to Earth.

[...] "Even though all of outer space might be infinite, where we put satellites are very specific regions," astrodynamicist Moriba Jah tells ZDNET. "They're becoming more congested."

Jah is the chief scientist for Privateer, a recently launched company backed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Privateer's mission is to bring more visibility to our space superhighways, where satellites zoom past one another at 17,000 miles per hour. The company wants to bring that visibility with proprietary knowledge graph technology, which allows it to create visualizations of all the satellites and debris in space. With its data engine, Privateer has created Wayfinder, an open-access tool that lets others in the space economy create the visualizations they need to occupy low-Earth orbit safely.

[...] By letting space get crowded with junk, Jah says, we risk losing the ability to use space for humanity's benefit.

Previously:

• The FCC Finally Starts Taking Space Junk Seriously
• Space Junk Found on Sheep Farm
• Wild Solar Weather is Causing Satellites to Plummet From Orbit. It's Only Going to Get Worse.

Original Submission