SpaceX’s Starship could become the world’s most sophisticated and expensive garbage truck.

CEO Elon Musk recently claimed via Twitter that the firm’s under-development rocket will play a role in clearing up Earth’s orbit. Starship, which is primarily designed to launch crew and cargo into space for SpaceX, could use the fairing door that protects cargo to also collect up debris.

“Yes, we can fly Starship around space & chomp up debris with the moving fairing door,” Musk wrote on July 3.

But this is huge. This concept, if realized could solve humanity’s greatest space problem. You see, the near-earth orbit is filled with various satellites, new, old, or disassembled. As of May, more than 27,000 individual pieces of space junk form a deadly ring around our planet, highly endangering new spaceships.

This debris can totally destroy a spacecraft on contact. How? Over 85% of this debris is larger than an average soccer ball, and each travels at speeds soaring over 28,000 kmph. So yeah, contact = boom.

And now, Musk proposes that specially configured Starships can open and close their heavy door meant for payload deployment, and basically trap debris. After feeding, these spaceships can come back down to Earth, and deposit the waste.

This is a highly ambitious project, as tracking the debris through space, loading it inside the cargo compartment without damaging it, and landing with the extra payload, are all … quite hard to do, to say the least.

But SpaceX is known for its ambitious projects, this one not an exception.

THE STARSHIP’S JOURNEY SO FAR:

• November 2018 — BFR, first announced in September 2017, gets renamed to Starship.

• December 2018 — Musk confirms the new ship has switched to stainless steel.

• January 2019 — Shortened “Starhopper” prototype unveiled and Musk explains the switch to steel.

• February 2019 — Raptor engine beats a long-standing rocket record.

• April 2019 — Starhopper completes a tethered “hop.”

• July 2019 — Starhopper launches 20 meters (67 feet).

• August 2019 — Starhopper launches 150 meters (500 feet).

• September 2019 — Starship Mk.1 full-size prototype unveiled.

• May 2020 — Starship SN4 full-size prototype completes a static test fire.

• August 2020 — SN5 launches 150 meters (500 feet).

• October 2020 — SN8 completes the first triple-Raptor static fire.

• December 2020 — SN8 launches 12.5 kilometers (41,000 feet) and crashes into the ground.

• February 2021 — SN9 launches 10 kilometers (33,000 feet) and crashes into the ground.

• March 2021 — SN10 launches 10 kilometers (33,000 feet), lands, and explodes eight minutes later. That same month, SN11 launches 10 kilometers (33,000 feet) and hits the ground in several pieces.

• May 2021 — SN15 launches 10 kilometers (33,000 feet) and lands without a hitch, except for a small fire at the base.

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Credits: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-starship-elon-musk-space-trash