There's currently about 8,000 tonnes of space debris orbiting planet earth and there are a number of reasons why this is a problem that needs to be dealt with swiftly. I spoke to Richard Duke of the Surrey Space centre who landed in the international news headlines last months with their REMOVE DEBRIS satellite and its space harpoon and net. Richard tells us about the satellite's development with Airbus and how Elon Musk and the ISS astronauts helped get the satellite into orbit for it's groundbreaking first in-orbit test.
This podcast is brought to you by my own book DARK: The A to Z Of Astronomy & The Cosmos - it's part Universe A-Z explainer and part beautiful coffee table fodder. It's with crowdfunding publisher UNBOUND so every single pledge makes a massive difference in seeing this book get made. All pledges get your name in the book itself but there's lots of different pledge levels including bespoke artwork / limited edition art from the book and lots more.
About the book:
www.unbound.com/books/dark
www.twitter.com/JC_Wilkins
About this REMOVE DEBRIS:
https://twitter.com/spaceatsurrey?lang=en
https://www.surrey.ac.uk/surrey-space-centre/missions/removedebris
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