This Japanese startup wants to shoot down space junk using laser

Space junk is a serious issue. With advent of the Space Age, new vistas were opened and we could start conquering the final frontier. But as number of satellites went up exponentially over the course of the last century, the issue of space junk became harder to solve. A Japanese company is now planning to use laser to shoot down space junk.

But first, what is space junk?

The word space junk is used mostly in the context of remnants of defunct satellites that are still in orbit around the Earth. These literal 'skeletons' of what were the most advanced machines made by the humankind have crowded orbits around Earth so much that at this moment, there are literally thousands of such satellites drifting 'aimlessly' above Earth.

These satellites and other pieces of defunct machinery pose threat to functioning satellites. A collision with a dead satellite can damage the newer one greatly as satellites usually travel at speeds of hundreds of kilometres per minute.

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EX-Fusion, an Osaka-based startup in Japan is gearing up to offer a service that'll remove chunks of space debris. And it is planning to do so with the help of a laser beam fired from the ground.

There are several other Japanese startups in the race but EX-Fusion's ground-based approach is making it stand out from its competitors.

In October last year, EX-Fusion struck a memorandum of understanding EOS Space Syatems, an Australian company that has tech to detect space debris.

So what's the plan?

EX-Fusion is aiming to place the laser in an observatory near Canberra. This observatory is operated by EOS Space. The first phase will involvesetting up the laser so that it can target space debris measuring less than 10 cm. Space junk of this size and smaller is tough to detect.

In the second phase, both companies will attempt space junk removal by powering up the laser beam to be fired from the surface of the Earth. The aim is to target the space debris in the opposing direction of its travel so that its speed decreases gradually and once it loses its speed, it enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up.

(With inputs from agencies)