Define "up there". Space junk is only an issue because it's in the wrong orbit, regardless of how cheap their hardware is they can avoid it becoming an issue by inserting it into an appropriate orbit where it'll burn up or be directed away from the Earth. As I understand it in the long term they aren't going to be doing much in LEO anyway where space junk is an issue.
The US is, from what I can see, very concerned about space junk (as well it should be). I'm sure anything that will be hanging around is going into very Low Earth Orbit where the atmosphere will very predictably pull it in and burn it up on a reasonable and completely passive-physics-driven schedule.
Re:Planetary Resources shows off Arkyd-100
by edlinfan on Monday January 21, 2013 @07:31PM
(#5094694)
True, space junk is an issue, and I don't know what Planetary is doing to mitigate that.
But, bear in mind that only the Arkyd 100 is supposed to stay in Earth orbit. The planned 200, 300, etc. all boost off in various directions (investigating and later, exploring asteroids) so their eventual fate doesn't matter as much.
>Who cares about reliability, it's just a robot and there are many more where it came from...
I'd expect anyone whose orbital hardware isn't cheap and disposable might care about scads of unreliable, soon to be junk being tossed up there.