A mission will launch to space this weekend that aims to demonstrate commercial technology to remove orbital debris, such as a defunct satellite.

The showcase is being staged by the Astroscale company and will be run from an operations center in the UK.

With more and more satellites being launched every year, there is now an imperative to try to keep orbits above the Earth clear of old junk.

And this ought to drive a vibrant market for debris removal services.

"We are entering an age of satellite constellations and some of these spacecraft could fail in orbit - and that would be a serious issue," said John Auburn, Astroscale's UK managing director.

If they fail at very low altitudes, they'll สล็อตxo  come back down on their own; but if satellites fail at 1,200-1,300km in altitude - they'll be up there for centuries with the risk that they start to break up, collide. with other objects and make the debris situation much, much worse. "

The End-of-Life Service by Astroscale demonstration (Elsa-d) mission consists of two spacecraft: a 175kg "servicer" and a 17kg "client".

They'll go up together on a Soyuz rocket on Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and, once in orbit, separate to play a repeating game of cat and mouse.

The servicer will use its sensors to find and chase down the client, latching on to it using a magnetic docking plate, before then releasing "the mouse" for another capture experiment.

The task will become increasingly complex, with the most difficult rendezvous requiring the servicer to grab the client as it's tumbling.

Ultimately, the duo will be commanded to come out of orbit to burn up in the atmosphere.