The European Space Agency says a self-destructing robot will be sent into orbit in 2025 to begin work on the world's first space cleanup mission. Jan Woerner of the European Space Agency discusses.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
OK. Sometimes, even the vast expanse of outer space gets cluttered.
JAN WOERNER: We have a lot of space debris also coming from old rockets, upper-stage satellites, adapters.
MARTIN: That's Jan Woerner. He's the director general of the European Space Agency. And he says all that space junk poses a danger to space exploration and to telecommunications that depend on satellites.
WOERNER: It is an infrastructure which should be clean because we use it. We need it.
NOEL KING, HOST:
Here's what happens. The junk whizzes around Earth in low orbit. And when it hits, it knocks holes in telecom and weather satellites. So the space agency and a private company announced a mission.
WOERNER: I sometimes call it a vacuum cleaner.
MARTIN: Trash collection in space.
WOERNER: It is very important that we take care of waste and we take care of the garbage.
MARTIN: The European Space Agency plans to launch a cleanup robot, a robot that will target a 220-pound chunk of an old rocket from a launch six years ago.
WOERNER: Has four robotic arms with which it will grab this space debris.
MARTIN: After latching on, it will then drag the piece of space junk into Earth's atmosphere, bringing it to a fiery conclusion.
KING: But there is a catch here.
WOERNER: Unfortunately, in this very first mission, it self-destructs.
KING: The robot also burns up when it reenters Earth's atmosphere. And the cost of this one-time mission...
WOERNER: 140 million U.S. dollars.
MARTIN: Work on the project begins next year before an official launch planned for 2025.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SPACE JUNK")
WANG CHUNG: (Singing) I'm riding on the space junk.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
"space" - Google News
December 13, 2019 at 05:08PM
https://ift.tt/2rykbx3
Cleaning Up Space Junk - NPR
"space" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Q8TIzF
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Cleaning Up Space Junk - NPR"
Post a Comment