Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Polytechnic University of Milan and the company GMV have developed a new methodology for detecting and estimating satellite maneuvers that improves the operation of the systems currently in use. This development, which is already being tested in operational environments, may help reduce the problem of space debris.

The number of satellites and fragments of space debris in Earth orbit currently amounts to around 30,000, according to the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA catalogs, although researchers in this field estimate the real number to be around 100,000.

The European Space Agency said on Wednesday its space telescope Euclid is scheduled to launch on July 1, blasting off on a mission to shed light on the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with the broadcast beginning at 1430 GMT, the ESA said in a tweet.

Euclid was originally planned to ride into space on a Russian Soyuz rocket, but last year Moscow withdrew its launchers in response to sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

The ESA was forced to turn to its rival SpaceX, the US company of billionaire Elon Musk, to launch the 1.4-billion-euro ($1.5 billion) mission.

The Euclid space telescope has a target launch date of July 1, 2023 (18:11 Finnish time at the earliest) with a backup launch date of July 2, 2023.

In six years, Euclid will complete a task that would take older telescopes like Hubble or Webb over a century. The main objective is to solve the problem of dark energy, i.e., why has the expansion of the universe started to accelerate?

A map to reveal the secrets of dark matter and dark energy