2023-09-20 17:05:00
DISPATCH — Cleaning up space is the goal of the French start-up Dark. To do this, the two thirty-somethings who founded it imagined a small rocket attached to a plane, which would be projected into orbit during the flight to collect hazardous waste. Dark will be established at Bordeaux-Mérignac airport in 2024 and the first test flight is planned for 2028.
As reported by AFP, the European Space Agency has identified some 36,000 pieces of debris measuring more than ten centimeters and tens of millions of other smaller ones in orbit around the Earth. It is this problem that Clyde Laheyne and Guillaume Orvain wanted to solve by creating Dark, but not only that… “The clutter of space is not the only problem, the danger lies above all in the presence of “uncontrolled objects” that can cause collisions, explains Clyde Laheyne.
To collect this waste, the two engineers imagined “Interceptor”, “a system allowing access to any point in low orbit, in less than 24 hours, to remove dangerous objects”.
Comment ? By equipping a modified airliner with a mini-launcher. The mini-rocket would fire its engines once the plane reached high altitude, heading into space. As AFP explains, a robotic module will capture space waste to destroy it in the atmosphere at Point Nemo, the furthest from land.
Alongside this main mission, the company is also designing a “plurality strategy” to build its economic model. For example, its devices could be used to deliver equipment, with a payload capacity of around 300 kilos in sun-synchronous orbit. A memorandum of understanding signed with Arianespace aims to explore commercial avenues in this area.
For the moment, the company has 23 employees, but is targeting 500 jobs (R&D, production, maintenance and space operations) on the site, where the first hires will take place in 2024.
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