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Worker Bee One navigated nimbly through the field of space debris, its maneuvering thrusters ensuring its agility and preventing collisions with larger pieces of junk.

Of course, its relative speed to the debris wasn't high, making the space junk appear like floating balloons, and Worker Bee One seemed to be taking a leisurely stroll rather than participating in a high-speed race.

However, some smaller objects still flew by rapidly, being too small and fast to be easily monitored like the larger pieces of space debris. By the time they were detected, it was too late to avoid them.

Therefore, the audience could periodically hear the sounds of 'ding, ding, clang, clang' impacts.

It made their hearts pound!

Other space stations, satellites, and spacecraft kept their distance, far away from space debris, but the Worker Bee One engineering spacecraft couldn't. Its mission was to delve into the heart of the space junk.

That's why it was equipped with armor plating.

And it was because of this armor that they could witness such a sight.

Many people talked about the state of space debris, but few had ever seen it firsthand. Today, they were getting their chance.

For example, right now, a wrench clattered against the hull of Worker Bee One before drifting past the camera.

The audience: '…'

The space junk in orbit all had stories to tell, not just simple rocket remnants and defunct satellites.

Once, during a spacewalk from the International Space Station, an astronaut received orders to repair external facilities.

So, the astronaut grabbed his tools, donned his extravehicular spacesuit, passed through the airlock, and began his spacewalk.

His task was simple: retighten some loose bolts on the space station's exterior, as these loose bolts posed a potential hazard to the entire crew.

Of course, this seemingly simple task was anything but.

The gloves of the extravehicular suit were too thick, making it difficult to grip the tools, and the weightless environment made movement awkward. Even a simple task like tightening screws became challenging.

Fortunately, the astronauts were professionally trained. After several hours of intense repair work, the job was done, and the astronaut breathed a sigh of relief, removing the wrench from the last screw.

Then, misfortune struck, adding another 'satellite' to Earth's orbit.

Because he didn't have a firm grip on the wrench, it slipped from his grasp. He instinctively reached out to grab it, but not only did he miss, he also pushed the wrench further away, sending it into space.

That wrench became space debris.

And it began orbiting Earth at a speed of 17,000 kilometers per hour.

'Fortunately,' it wasn't alone, as space also contained an American astronaut's glove that had been floating for over twenty years, along with some bolts, washers, and a pencil that had escaped from the Salyut 7 space station's decompression chamber, as well as the 'unethical' practice of early astronauts tossing out garbage from space stations or manned capsules.

But these weren't the main sources of space debris; they were just the tip of the iceberg, and even then, just the tip visible above the water.

Most space debris consists of discarded spacecraft. When a spacecraft or part of a spacecraft stops functioning, it's abandoned in orbit, drifting indefinitely in space.

Retrieving these objects is very costly, so they're left in space to rotate around Earth until they fall to the ground or collide with other space debris.

The upper stages of launch vehicles are another major source. When launching a rocket, multiple rocket boosters are needed to ascend into space. These rockets are extinguished in stages, with the final stage being called the upper stage because it's installed near the top and burns very late in the process.

The first or second stage rockets ignite first and shut down before entering orbit. After separation, they quickly fall back to Earth. The last stage rocket can carry the payload into orbit and then orbit Earth.

Once the payload is separated, they become useless space debris, and these are some of the largest pieces of space junk.

In addition, there's rocket solid and liquid fuel. After launch, some residual fuel floats into a container or leaks out.

This makes collisions between containers extremely dangerous, since it was the mixing of those fuels that generated the enormous energy to send the rocket into orbit. But now there's no supervision, everything is chaotic, and the chance of explosions greatly increases.

Once an explosion occurs, even more space debris is created.

And once there's an explosion, the situation becomes even more uncontrollable.

Back then, an Ariane rocket exploded shortly after entering orbit, turning into 564 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters and 2300 smaller fragments.

The key is the explosion; these fragments can scatter in any direction.

Subsequently, the remnants of this rocket led to the demise of two Japanese communications satellites!

Later, scientists realized the problem and began to actively release residual fuel to reduce the risk of explosions.

But another problem arose: the released fuel remained in orbit, freezing at low temperatures and scattering like steel balls, not much different from the wrench orbiting Earth at 17,000 kilometers per hour.

Even worse.

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Because there's only one wrench, but there's a whole cloud of 'steel balls.'

There's also an incredibly dangerous type of space debris: paint from spacecraft, in the form of tiny flakes or particles.

Aging or collisions with other tiny particles can chip off small paint particles from spacecraft, creating this type of space debris. It's estimated that there are millions of tiny paint fragments lurking in space, floating in Earth's orbit.

All of this is a threat!

A threat to operating spacecraft!

A threat to astronauts entering space!

Originally, countries couldn't do much. Cleaning it up was possible, but the cost was too high, so they didn't consider it much.

However, everyone was concerned about the threat in orbit. If the orbit was blocked, it would be difficult for humanity to leave Earth again. So, after technology developed significantly, they began to find solutions.

Roughly speaking, it's about cleaning up debris and defending against debris.

Cleaning up debris means reducing the amount of debris by various methods to make space debris enter the atmosphere and burn up.

Defending against debris means adding armor, the thickest armor possible, so that spacecraft aren't affected by collisions with space debris.

However, after being launched into orbit, their work efficiency wasn't great, or they hadn't really started, only proposing plans.

Today, Worker Bee One has arrived, combining the two: reducing the amount of space debris and adding armor.

Moreover, according to the plan, their method of reducing space debris isn't crude, but full of technology.

"As expected, having technology allows you to do whatever you want."

"I think so too. With high technology, previous assumptions and plans can be easily realized."

"There's no such thing as easy realization. The Pathfinder team must have conducted long-term research to develop it. It's all the sweat of scientists, engineers, and technicians."

Chapter 2 at 10 PM