Launch a rocket, from an airplane, to remove waste that threatens space infrastructure: the French start-up Dark will be established at Bordeaux-Mérignac airport in 2024 to meet this challenge.
This implementation project represents “around 500 jobs bringing together R & D, production, maintenance and space operations” indicates the company in a press release this Wednesday. Dark plans the first hires in Bordeaux by summer 2024 via temporary installations.
Millions of small pieces of debris in space
Founded in 2021 by two thirty-somethings who worked for the European missile manufacturer MBDA, Clyde Laheyne and Guillaume Orvain, this “space protection and security” company wants to respond to a “need”: cleaning up in orbit, where the risk of collision is increasing.
The European Space Agency has in fact identified some 36,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters and tens of millions of other smaller pieces in orbit around the Earth. But “space clutter is not the only problem, the danger lies above all in the presence of uncontrolled objects,” explains Clyde Laheyne.
A mini-launcher installed on a modified airliner
To collect these bulky items, Dark imagined Interceptor, “a system allowing access to any point in low orbit, in less than 24 hours, to remove dangerous objects,” explains the company.
How ? By installing a mini-launcher on a modified airliner. The device takes off from an airport, a small rocket docked to the cabin, to release it at high altitude. It then turns on its engines to reach space. The first test flight is planned for 2028.
A robotic module will capture space waste to destroy it in the atmosphere at Point Nemo, the furthest from land. In June, Dark signed a contract with the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) to simulate an emergency withdrawal mission.
The choice of Bordeaux-Mérignac airport, which seeks to encourage the reception of NewSpace companies, an emerging sector in the region, responded to technical criteria but also quality of life for future employees of Dark, indicates Clyde Laheyne again.