TORONTO -- From rocket parts to tiny flecks of paint from spacecraft, millions of pieces of debris or “space junk” are currently flying around at high speeds in Earth’s orbit., this debris can reach speeds of 28,000 km/h – or seven times faster than a bullet – as it travels around the low Earth orbit .
“A small object in space, down to one centimetre, a fleck of paint, moving at eight kilometres a second presents a serious danger to anything that’s in its path.” In order to provide them with this information, Bain’s company plans to send a commercial constellation into space in 2022, comprised of 12 satellites that will directly monitor objects.
“Our system would be based in space. It would be well positioned to get a very, what we call near synoptic, an almost complete coverage of all the orbits from low Earth orbit all the way out to MEO medium Earth orbit, and highly elliptical and GEO orbits,” he said. “You’re going to get a full picture of space.”