DAY 1

TRUE FALSE NOT GIVEN/ YES NO NOT GIVEN

PASSAGE 1:

The collision could have been catastrophic. At around 11am on Monday, a satellite by the European
Space Agency was forced to rapidly fire its thrusters to avoid crashing into rival SpaceX’s ‘Starlink’
satellites. It was the first time ESA had ever had to conduct such an “avoidance manoeuvre’ with an
active satellite - and it’s unlikely to be the last. Earth’s orbit is becoming increasingly crowded. There
are currently more than 8,400 tonnes of space junk in orbit travelling at speeds up to 17,500 mph, which
is fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage another satellite or
spacecraft. Companies such as SpaceX and Richard Branson-backed OneWeb are now launching
satellite mega-constellations to provide high-speed internet to Earth. Nasa is concerned that this could
cause a cascade effect with each collision generating more debris causing further collisions. This is
known as the 'Kessler Syndrome', proposed over 40 years ago by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler.

“The main issue is the increasing risk,” says Dr Holger Krag, the head of the Space Debris at ESA.
“Due to the high velocities these pieces have, any collision with a satellite that provides useful services
to us can have dramatic consequences.” Instead of avoidance, space agencies now want to actively clean
up space debris with everything from harpoons and lasers to giant nets. At stake is a global space
industry that is forecast to be worth £400 billion by 2030. UK companies and universities are now
leading the way in providing technological solutions. For instance, RemoveDEBRIS is a £15.5m
multinational research project led by Surrey University backed by the European Commission. It’s
tasked with finding the most efficient way to capture hazardous debris currently orbiting Earth.

Started in 2013 as one of the world’s first attempts to address the build-up of space debris, Surrey Space
Centre’s Professor Guglielmo Aglietti enlisted the aid of space companies from across the UK and
Europe to build tech demos of different methods of retrieval. “It is important to remember that a few
significant collisions have already happened,” says Aglietti. “To maintain the safety of current and
future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of space debris has to be addressed. “We
believe the technologies we will be demonstrating could provide feasible answers to the space junk
problem - answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future.” The mission
sends the RemoveDebris platform, armed with a variety of payloads deployed for clean-up, such as a
net and a harpoon. The platform and avionics are supplied by the Airbus-owned Surrey Satellite
Technology (SSTL), a 450-strong team based in Guildford that has worked on a variety of orbital
technologies. Airbus, the world’s second-biggest aerospace company, provides the harpoon and net.

“SSTL’s expertise in designing and building low cost, small satellite missions has been fundamental to
the success of RemoveDEBRIS, a landmark technology demonstrator for Active Debris Removal
missions that will begin a new era of space junk clearance in Earth’s orbit,” says Sir Martin Sweeting,
Chief Executive of SSTL. The project has already successfully demonstrated its potential use. In April
2018, the platform was delivered to the International Space Station by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It was
then assembled on the ISS before being deployed on its mission. In September last year, it completed
its first experiment. The platform fired an expanding net to ‘capture’ a deployed target simulating space
junk.

The net was fired from the RemoveDebris platform towards a small ‘target cubesat’ (developed by
Surrey Space Centre itself) in order to ensnare the offending object. While using a catapulted net may
sound like a simple idea the complexity of using it in space took years to plan. “We spent six years
testing in parabolic flights, in special drop towers and also thermal vacuum chambers,” said the
RemoveDEBRIS project head at Airbus, Ingo Retat.
The following month, the platform was used for reconnaissance on space debris using its LiDAR - a
form of radar that uses lasers to scan an object in 3D - and colour camera to determine the trajectory of
the junk. And in February of this year, there was a successful demonstration of a harpoon fired into a
target plate attached to an extended boom, before deploying barbs to grab onto the object. The final
stage of RemoveDEBRIS’s experiments will be to deploy the platform with an inflatable dragsail,
slowing the satellite’s descent into orbit in order for it, and any junk it may be carrying, to safely
disintegrate on re-entry. RemoveDEBRIS is not the only mission looking into active debris removal, of
course.

Private industry is looking to back the new wave of celestial litter-pickers. The Japanese company
Astroscale, founded in 2013 by IT entrepreneur Nobu Okada, received £110m backing from companies
such as Mitsubishi and airline group ANA Holdings. Astroscale is looking to use its own ELSA-d
satellites to effectively ‘dock’ with debris using electromagnetic plates before platform and target are
both sent to the Earth’s atmosphere. The satellites will be operated from a control centre facility in the
UK at the Harwell space campus near Oxford, with its first mission planned for early 2020.

The American space company Rocket Lab, founded in 2006 by New Zealander Peter Beck, has also
begun to look into space debris mitigation. In May this year, it launched a satellite to evaluate new ways
of tracking space debris. ESA, meanwhile, asked the European industry to offer proposals on different
capture mechanisms, as well as a commercial path following a successful test. Originally called the
e.Deorbit project, the currently untitled mission is set to use a clamp attached to robotic tentacles to
capture rogue objects. ESA is targeting active removal of space debris by 2025, with the proposal for
the latest mission set to go in front of ESA’s council of ministers by the end of the year.

While Krag says that the project could be a ‘game-changer’ that could trigger a market for debris
removal, he says that prevention should come first. While swerving one of Elon Musk’s satellites was
a first, in 2018 ESA performed 28 manoeuvres to avoid its satellites crashing into debris. The process
is complicated, with the Space Debris office calculating future orbital positions of other satellites and
the possible outcomes of particular actions.

ESA say that in the coming years, the manual avoidance used today will ‘become impossible’ with
artificial intelligence being investigated to automate the process. By 2030, ESA wants to ‘effectively
mitigate’ the hazards posed by space junk, using technology in spacecraft to prevent explosions, avoid
collisions and ensure safe disposal once they become defunct. He also wants more organisation and
pragmatism between space companies to avoid too many situations such as the Aeolus’ near-miss. “Any
attempt at international regulation was not successful,” says Krag. “I'd rather be relying on the people
contributing because everybody shares the same environment. There must be a common interest to keep
it clean, and therefore you find a lot of voluntary guidelines. We need to go back to these guidelines
and factor in how you control traffic and how to coordinate manoeuvres.” Prevention must come first
as otherwise an ever-increasing amount of space junk will make retrieval a futile task. Our orbit may
never be entirely clear of hazards, such is the risk of spacefaring, but these steps to reduce the clutter
are becoming increasingly essential the more we take to the stars.
Questions

Read the above passage and answer whether the statements are

TRUE if the information in the passage matches with the statement

FALSE if the information in the passage is directly contradicting the statement

NOT GIVEN if the statement is not available as information in the passage

1. Averting collisions in space is seen to be persistent in the future too.

2. The best technique to perform space clean-up has been discovered by the Surrey University.

3. Space clean-up is important to avoid hampering of Satellites’ performance.

4. The net in the RemoveDebris technology, used to catapult space debris, took long time to
manufacture.

5. RemoveDebris has fierce indomitable competition against it for enabling space clean-up

6. RemoveDebris and e.Deorbit are two techniques that work on the same principle.

7. Space Debris can be harmful if not disposed cautiously.

8. Consensus between organisations on clean-up techniques is an essential requirement inorder to

make space clean-up successful.

PASSAGE 2:
The Trump administration plans to significantly weaken federal rules that would have forced
Americans to use much more energy-efficient light bulbs, a move that could contribute to
greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. The proposed changes would eliminate
requirements that effectively meant that most light bulbs sold in the United States — not only
the familiar, pear-shaped ones, but several other styles as well — must be either LEDs or
fluorescent to meet new efficiency standards.

The rules being weakened, which dated from 2007 and the administration of President George
W. Bush and slated to start in the new year, would have all but ended the era of the incandescent
bulb invented more than a century ago. Eliminating inefficient bulbs nationwide would save
electricity equivalent to the output of at least 25 large power plants, enough to power all homes
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to an estimate by the Natural Resources Defense
Council.

The Trump administration, however, said the changes would benefit consumers by keeping
prices low and eliminating government regulation. “The Energy Department flat out got it
wrong today,” said Jason Hartke, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a non-profit
coalition of business and environmental groups. Calling the move an “unforced error,” he said,
“Wasting energy with inefficient light bulbs isn’t just costly for homes and businesses, it’s
terrible for our climate.” The actions are the latest by the Trump administration to weaken a
broad array of rules designed to fight climate change. Last week it announced a far-reaching
plan to cut back on the regulation of emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Earlier
this year, it proposed freezing antipollution and fuel-efficiency standards for cars, and tried to
replace the Clean Power Plan, a signature emissions-reduction measure of the Obama
administration.

President Trump has repeatedly dismissed the scientific consensus that climate change is
caused by human activity and requires urgent action to avoid its most dire effects, even
as government scientists have warned about the damage that global warming is already causing
the United States’ economy. Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy,
said the 2007 law requires the department to issue standards “only when doing so would be
economically justified. These standards are not.” She added that the administration’s action
“will ensure that the choice of how to light homes and businesses is left to the American people,
not the federal government.”

The trade association for companies that make light bulbs applauded the Energy Department’s
decision. In a statement, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association said Americans are
already buying the more efficient bulbs and the final rule “will not impact the market’s
continuing, rapid adoption of energy-saving lighting.” The group estimates that by the end of
2019, as much as 84 percent of “general purpose” light sockets will be filled by LED and
compact fluorescent bulbs.
Rapid technological change in the lowly light bulb has been one of the largely unsung success
stories in the fight to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Energy consumption in
American homes had been on the rise for decades. But that has reversed significantly in recent
years, thanks in part to the growing acceptance of technologies like LED bulbs and compact
fluorescents. Since 2010, energy consumption in American homes has dropped by 6 percent,
according to Lucas Davis, an energy economist at the Haas School of Business, which is part
of the University of California, Berkeley.

In 2007, Congress passed legislation to phase out inefficient incandescent and halogen bulbs.
As part of that process, the oldest incandescent technology had already disappeared from
standard pear-shaped bulbs by 2014 in favor of “halogen incandescents,” which look the same
but use less power. Around that time, some conservative lawmakers and commentators turned
the transition into a partisan dispute during the Obama administration, warning that the
Democratic administration would force people to buy inferior bulbs. More recently, though,
that notion of a partisan divide has faded, Professor Davis said. “LEDs are being sold in large
volumes in all 50 states,” he said, not just blue states.

LED bulbs show how seemingly modest shifts in technology can have a profound effect on
people’s lives and wallets. Because of their long life and energy efficiency, an LED bulb can
save consumers an estimated $50 to $100 over its several-year lifetime, while reducing the
number of times a year they need to climb a stepladder or kitchen table to replace burnt-out
bulbs. LED bulbs, once many times more expensive than incandescent bulbs, have plunged in
price and can often be found for less than $2 each.

Two rollbacks were unveiled on Wednesday. One would eliminate new energy efficiency
requirements for pear-shaped bulbs that were supposed to take effect Jan. 1, 2020. The
department is proposing a new rule that would end that requirement, subject to a 60-day
comment period. A second rollback targets rules that, next year, would have required adding
several additional kinds of incandescent and halogen light bulbs to the energy-efficient group:
three-way bulbs; the candle-shaped bulbs used in chandeliers; the globe-shaped bulbs found in
bathroom lighting; and reflector bulbs used in recessed fixtures and track lighting. Under the
Energy Department’s proposed plan, those requirements will be eliminated and sales of
traditional incandescent bulbs for those purposes can continue.

The changes are likely to be challenged in court. California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra,
said he would fight the administration’s action in court, calling the shift “another dim-witted
move that will waste energy at the expense of our planet.” Noah Horowitz, director of the
Center for Energy Efficiency Standards at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “We
will explore all options, including litigation, to stop this completely misguided and unlawful
action.” He said regulation remains necessary. “Energy-wasting incandescents and halogens
still make up more than a third of new bulb sales,” he said.
Questions

Read the above passage and answer whether the statements are

TRUE if the information in the passage matches with the statement

FALSE if the information in the passage is directly contradicting the statement

NOT GIVEN if the statement is not available as information in the passage

1. The current US government is against the usage of energy-efficient bulbs.

2. The pear-shaped bulb is the most popular type of bulb sold across the nation.

3. The usage of energy-inefficient bulbs has two contradicting judgements.

4. The Trump administration has a swift implementation plan for curbing emission of Methane.

5. The Energy department is against the implementation of the 2007 rule of regulating the usage
of incandescent bulbs.

6. The innovation in the conventional light bulb has not yet been acknowledged by many.

7. Since the new-generation electric bulbs were constantly driven to be better in efficiency, some
experts discredited the 2007 regulation on LEDs.

8. The prices of LED bulbs are only marginally higher than the conventional bulbs.

9. After 2019, the incandescent bulbs are seen to be indefinitely banished from the market.

10. The reversion of pro-energy-efficiency regulations has been seen by some lawmakers as an
asset to the planet.