Plan wins funding to remove derelict satellites

Image source, ClearSpace

Image caption, A group of UK-based businesses are working on a proposal to remove two old satellites from low Earth orbit

Two derelict satellites are to be removed from Earth's orbit under a plan by a UK-based consortium.

The satellites are more than a decade old and it would take up to 100 years before atmospheric drag would cause them to naturally re-enter the atmosphere and burn up.

The UK Space Agency has awarded £2.2m funding to help the consortium develop its plan.

The project, led by London-based start-up ClearSpace, and involving Edinburgh organisation AstroAgency, would see a spacecraft grab and then remove the satellites from Earth's orbit - and the path of other satellites.

The initiative is part of a wider effort to clean-up space junk cluttering more than 430 miles up in low Earth orbit.