The French Space Agency - CNES has awarded Dark, a French company, a contract to conduct the world’s first private emergency interception simulation. The purpose of this study will be to assess Dark’s Interceptor system, designed to reach any orbit in space within six hours and capture large debris such as rocket bodies.
Space debris and collisions are one of the most pressing challenges of the next decade, requiring the rapid development of mitigation and remediation strategies. As human activities in space grow at an increasing rate, the accumulation of space debris threatens currently operational satellites and future missions. Collisions are more and more likely to trigger cascading effects, leaving large swathes of space entirely unusable. To ensure safety and sustainability, space debris must be proactively removed. This will protect valuable assets and preserve the benefits of space exploration for communications, weather monitoring, navigation, and scientific research.
The framework developed by Dark, called Salazar, fully simulates the overall process and behavior of Interceptor for various scenarios and mission types. For this contract, the French Space Agency - CNES has selected a rocket body from a list of 50 objects that urgently need to be removed from orbit and defined a scenario that Dark will execute. A typical debris removal mission consists of complex operations such as responsive launch, rendezvous, capture, and reentry to Point NEMO: the key capabilities that will ensure the sustainability of space as a resource.
This contract furthers and deepens a long-standing collaboration between the French Space Agency - CNES and Dark, that started with the successful collaboration on a new regulatory framework for Interceptor’s operation, both airborne and on the ground. The system was specifically built to launch directly into space from mainland France and avoid the logistics and costs associated with overseas launch sites.
About Dark: Dark is a space protection and security company founded in 2021 that is developing an Emergency Debris Removal (EDR) platform. Interceptor is an EDR system developed by Dark with the unique feature that it can be used as a platform for existing markets such as payload delivery or hypersonic experiments.
About l’Aéroport de Bordeaux: At the heart of the airport organization, the Airport of Bordeaux-Merignac is responsible for the operation, maintenance, management and development of the hub under a concession granted by the French government, in close collaboration with all public and private operators. It also defines and implements a strategy to increase the value of the airport with and for its region and its economic, social and environmental challenges.
Press contact Bordeaux Airport
Sophie VERGNERES - 05 56 34 59 29 - communication@bordeaux.aeroport.frMore information : https://www.bordeaux.aeroport.f
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