Russia Claims To Have Developed Fuel From Old, Decommissioned Satellites

Russian Space Systems (RSS) has claimed to develop a space system which can turn old, decommissioned satellites in the Earth’s orbit and process them into fuel according to reports in TASS

The space debris disposal system will be able to capture “decommissioned small satellites in low orbits (from 500 to 700 km),” the engineer said.

“The system consists of a trap that includes a net in the form of a cupola and a cone and a processing device. When a satellite gets into the trap, it undergoes the stage of its processing through a grinder and a special mill,” she specified.

A satellite thus chopped inside the system will then be mixed with oxygen and hydrogen and turned into fuel, the project head said.

Now the project is expected to be patented: the engineers filed an application for the space grinder’s internal layout in 2018 and for its external look in 2019. In Barkova’s estimate, the project of creating the space mill is estimated at about 7.5 billion rubles ($117 million).

According to NASA’s data, there are over 2,200 active and more than 5,000 decommissioned satellites in orbit today as well as over 14,000 fragments of space debris. Overall, almost 20,000 objects have been registered in the Earth’s orbit to date.