admin Launchspace Technologies Corporation has announced that its innovative solution for orbital debris remediation and enhanced spacecraft shielding will be space qualified on the Airbus Bartolomeo external platform on the International Space Station (ISS).
Details on the Endeavor
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), manager of ISS National Lab, under a cooperative agreement with NASA, has awarded Launchspace a grant towards the on-orbit utilization of Bartolomeo. In addition, Launchspace is working with the NASA Glenn Research Center under a Space Act Agreement for the design, manufacture and testing of advanced materials that will be part of the company’s patented orbital debris remediation solution.
“I believe the traction we have seen in the market comes from our strong partnership with Airbus and our collaboration with NASA”, said Launchspace CEO, John Bauman. “Launchspace will use the Bartolomeo platform to test our technology for orbital debris remediation and enhanced spacecraft shielding by capturing small orbital debris and mitigating the creation of additional smaller and dangerous orbital debris.” “This collaboration between Airbus and Launchspace is an example of the complementary relationship between Commercial Space Infrastructure Providers and cutting-edge technology developers coming together to provide significant advancement in low earth orbit technologies,” said Debra Facktor, Head of U.S. Space Systems at Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc. “Our Airbus ISS Bartolomeo platform enables broad scale payload hosting capability with end-to-end payload services, along with any needed transportation, astronaut crew time and other ISS resources.”
Debris Removing Tech
The Launchspace ISS payload consists of small orbital ‘Debris Impact Pads’, which house a series of sensors that record the impact, force, and orbital location of orbital debris that impacts on the ISS. Launchspace plans to put on orbit their orbital debris remediation solution after their work on the ISS with Airbus. “Combined with our planned sensor spacecraft solution, we believe we have a comprehensive solution for spaceflight safety to detect and track orbital debris, active satellites and threats from adversaries against our country’s space-based national security assets. These problems threaten the global space economy, which in 2019 was $420 billion and is forecast by the Department of Commerce to grow to an annual $1 trillion,” added Bauman.
This in-orbit demonstration is a key step towards Launchspace’s plan to send Debris Collection Units into equatorial low-Earth orbits. Launchspace’s patented orbital debris solution maneuvers to avoid active satellites, spacecraft and large orbital debris, while capturing debris that is 2 cm and smaller. This orbital debris is typically too small to detect and track and can hence become an unavoidable risk for spacecraft and the ISS. This is why Launchspace also plans on developing a LEO sensor constellation to, among other things, detect and track orbital debris that is too small to be seen by ground-based solutions.
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