Novel ways to declutter the skies aim of SmallSat Alliance’s Collegiate Space Competition
By Patrick L. Kennedy
A thousand miles and more above our heads, satellites form a critical modern infrastructure, aiding global communication, navigation, and weather forecasting. But once a satellite is decommissioned or dies, it doesn’t disappear. It stays up there, an orbiting hunk of junk, joining cast-off rocket parts and other space debris. If current trends continue—nearly 12,000 working satellites already encircle Earth, with up to 60,000 more expected in just the next six years—that could eventually mean a lot of litter clogging the orbital skyways. Collisions could result, taking out the operational satellites before their time and disrupting communications on the home planet. Even more frightening, space debris can and does crash to Earth—most recently in Saskatchewan, Canada.
This past academic year, a pair of Boston University seniors—now graduates—devised a potential solution. Mechanical engineering majors in the College of Engineering Anisa Chowdhury (ENG’24) and Nick Leung (ENG’24) took up the challenge issued by the SmallSat Alliance in its second annual Collegiate Space Competition: In six months, research and write a detailed proposal for a realistic way to declutter the skies. The technology would need to be feasible technically as well as financially and politically.
Winners were announced late last month: Leung and Chowdhury took first prize, splitting $2,000.