Using Space Junk

Space junk in Earth orbit has become a major problem, threatening future space operations, manned and unmanned, with the increasing chance of disastrous collisions. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, however, is pursuing a program that could begin to change junk into resource.

The idea is to salvage parts of defunct satellites and use them on new satellites. The first parts being looked at for re-use are antennas, but once technologies and craft are developed to intercept dead space vehicles, deconstruct them, and transfer usable parts to new satellites, the potential to use more than old antennas will be there. Ultimately, constructing entirely new craft from parts of old ones would be a possibility.

Unfortunately, a vehicle that could dismantle dead satellites would also have the potential to take apart active ones. That would make it, some nations would argue, an anti-satellite weapon. So, DARPA's program no doubt has legal and political hurdles to clear before it can grapple with the space junk problem.