Moscow: Up to 150 tonnes of space trash fall to the Earth every year and over 9,000 tonnes are circulating in orbit at any given time, according to materials showcased by Roscosmos at the Startup Village 2021 fair in Moscow’s Skolkovo Innovation Center on Monday.
In figures, it comes to 25,000 bits of debris up to 4 inches in size, about 900,000 bits up to 0.4 inches, and over 128 million bits smaller than that — and all travel 20 times faster than speed of sound, according to Roscosmos’ presentation.
The space agency wants to partner up with private companies, banks and venture capital through concession to create a monitoring system of debris and other dangerous space objects, it said in the presentation. The concession is expected to be launched in 2022 and remain in effect until 2045.
Roscosmos ultimately aims to make 1.2 billion rubles ($16 million) with its 6.4% share by 2035, anticipating that the space monitoring market will flourish in the near future, and be worth at least $1.6 million per year for so-called high elliptical orbits and up to $98 million for low Earth orbits as early as by 2025.
