An announcement from the UK Space Agency and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) says the Government is awarding over £1 million in funding for seven of the UK’s ‘most pioneering’ space projects that will help monitor hazardous space debris (also known as space junk) and protect “the vital services we rely on every day”.

Alok Sharma, Secretary of State for BEIS, highlighted the importance of monitoring space debris by referring to the £100 million satellite called CryoSat-2, which on 2 July 2018 was monitoring ice caps on Earth from a height of 700km above us when mission controllers spotted a chunk of space debris hurtling towards it at a speed of 17,000mph.

Mr Sharma said: “To avert a potentially catastrophic collision, engineers fired up CryoSat’s thrusters and moved it out of harm’s way. This near miss was not the first, and it will not be the last.

“An estimated 20,000 pieces of space debris are currently whizzing around the Earth; these include ‘zombie’ satellites and whole junkyards’ worth of whirling fragments left over from space missions.

“Without the right protection, a four-inch piece of space junk could breach the walls of a satellite and smash it into thousands of parts — and in doing so set off a chain reaction that could see a cascade of collisions.”

This chain reaction is known as the Kessler Syndrome, after the space debris expert Don Kessler, who in 1976 predicted that the space around Earth could become so riddled with junk that launches become impossible and ‘vehicles’ that entered space would quickly be destroyed.

Adding to this, Mr Sharma said: “While satellite operators can dodge large pieces of debris and armour satellites to withstand the impact of smaller fragments, with the need for a growing number of satellites in orbit we need to be able to monitor the space highways and to gradually clear it of obstructions.

“However, if we do not take action now, low-Earth orbit could become impossible for satellites to navigate and, perhaps, it might become too perilous for astronauts to live on the International Space Station.

“Although at present we do not own a ‘celestial broom or a tractor beam’ that can wipe out each bit of detritus, the companies we are backing are developing technologies — like artificial intelligence and sensor technology — that will help spot these risks and taking evasive action.

“We are championing a number of new ideas, such as that of London-based Lift Me Off, which is developing and testing machine-learning algorithms designed to distinguish between satellites and space debris using thermal infrared and optical cameras.

“Meanwhile, Northern Ireland-based Ando will use a scientific detector camera to help the astronomy community track debris that can interrupt ground-based astronomy; another project will draw on the expertise of Fujitsu, Amazon and Astroscale to improve the commercial viability of missions that seek to remove debris.”