Britain backs a £60 million mission to remove two defunct satellites from orbit by 2032
The UK Active Debris Removal mission will launch a refuellable spacecraft from SaxaVord Spaceport in 2029 to capture two dead satellites and lower them to burn up in the atmosphere. ClearSpace UK is the industry delivery partner, and the public will be invited to name the spacecraft.
The Government is backing a national mission to clear space debris with more than £60 million, funding a spacecraft designed to capture two defunct satellites and remove them from orbit by 2032, it has announced.
The mission, called UK Active Debris Removal, will use robotic capture technology to take hold of dead satellites and release them lower in the atmosphere, where they will burn up. The Government describes it as the first time a single spacecraft has disposed of more than one satellite in this way. The spacecraft will be refuellable and designed for future use, and is due to launch in 2029 from SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, which the announcement says recently received £30 million of Government funding.
The UK Space Agency is working with ClearSpace UK as its industry delivery partner. A second report of the announcement describes ClearSpace as prime contractor for the mission, responsible for design, development and delivery, with the agency acting as the government customer defining the requirement. The targets are two UK-registered defunct satellites in low Earth orbit that were not designed for servicing.
This mission is about much more than removing debris.Dr Alice Bunn, Co-Director, UK Space Agency, October 2026
Ministers frame the mission as protection for everyday services. Old satellites and their remnants threaten the active satellites that support navigation, weather forecasts, communications and national security, and the Government says hundreds of thousands of tracked debris objects travel at speeds above 17,000 miles an hour, fast enough to damage vital infrastructure.
The mission sits inside a wider industrial strategy for in-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing, a sector the Government predicts will grow into a billion dollar industry within a decade. It cites a UK space sector worth £18.6 billion and supporting more than 55,000 skilled jobs. Space Minister Liz Lloyd said Britain was determined to lead the global effort to clean up space and to protect the satellites that underpin modern life. Dr Alice Bunn of the UK Space Agency said the technologies developed would support future servicing, assembly and manufacturing in orbit.
A public competition to name the spacecraft opens with the announcement, the Government says. ClearSpace UK's managing director, Rob Atchison, said the next step was to design, build and test a spacecraft able to approach and take control of an object never designed to be caught, working with partners across the UK supply chain towards operations in 2029.
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