“Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water”
— ESA Director General Jan Wörner (2019)
The Problem
Space debris poses a serious threat to current and future spacecraft. With space missions becoming more frequent, the chances of generating more space debris increases, which eventually could lead to the scenario depicted by the Kessler syndrome.
In this scenario, the density of space debris in low-earth orbit has passed a threshold value where new collisions are the result of a chain reaction of previous collisions. Due to this chain reaction, the number of collisions will increase exponentially. The result is a rapid growth in the number of space debris, including debris that is too small to be tracked.
“The only way to do it is to bring back the larger objects ... and we don’t know how to do that.”
Approach
The vision of RISE is to contribute to making earth observation and space exploration safe and sustainable.
To make this vision a reality, RISE wants to engage as many students as possible by encouraging them to think of innovative solutions in a collaborative way. The aim is to set up a yearly challenge where students work on real-life problems about space sustainability. In this way, the team hopes to inspire and educate the students about the possibilities that come with a clean space.
