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How do you go about tidying up 7,000 tonnes of space junk?

In what's arguably the most ambitious tidying up mission ever undertaken, a spacecraft will be launched next year to collect rubbish floating in orbit. Scientists on the mission will test three inventions designed to gather thousands of tonnes of debris. The space junk will be harpooned, caught in a net, or dragged by a sail to be burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. Dr Jason Forshaw from the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey told Susannah Streeter how dangerous space debris can be for missions.

(Picture: A satellite. Picture credit: NASA.)

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3 minutes