Telling satellites to de-orbit themselves only works if they still function. For the ones that fail, someone has to go up and fetch them. Astroscale flew ELSA-d to prove a servicer could find and grab a satellite in orbit, and its UK subsidiary is now building ELSA-M to remove a real, retired OneWeb satellite.
A small spacecraft that rides a rocket, then carries customers' satellites to separate orbital slots, tests new hardware in space and, at the end of its life, empties its tanks and drifts down to burn up. D-Orbit has now flown 26 commercial ION missions.
Most space debris is tracked from the ground, by radars and telescopes limited by weather, daylight and geography. Bengaluru start-up Digantara launched SCOT, a satellite that watches other objects from orbit, and now sells collision warnings to governments. It is also moving fast into missile tracking.
Hall-effect thrusters used to be the size of a fridge and need kilowatts of power. Exotrail shrank the technology for small satellites, giving them the ability to change orbit, avoid collisions and de-orbit at the end of their lives. It first flew on an Indian rocket in 2020 and now sells to satellite makers in Europe and India.
Only a small share of the planet has mobile coverage. Kinéis, based in Toulouse, put 25 nanosatellites into orbit in less than a year to collect tiny data messages from sensors anywhere on Earth. Its users include wildlife researchers, small-scale fisheries and firefighters watching remote forests.
