Odin Space presents debris impact plates to His Majesty The King at the launch of Project Nova

Odin co-founder and COO Dan Terrett showed the plates alongside the millimeter-scale projectiles that penetrated them, to demonstrate the damage caused by debris too small to be tracked from the ground. Odin attended at the invitation of the UK Space Agency, for the launch of its Project Nova program.‍

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The impact plates

Each plate is a representative satellite shield that has been struck in a hypervelocity impact facility by a surrogate debris particle traveling at 5 to 6 kilometers per second. The projectile displayed with each plate is around a millimeter across. It passes straight through the shield.

Ground-based tracking networks catalogue approximately 40,000 objects in orbit. The European Space Agency estimates a further 130 million objects between 1mm and 1cm that are too small to be catalogued or avoided. This is the population Odin's sensors are built to measure, and the population that damages spacecraft.

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The UK Space Agency's Project Nova

Project Nova is the UK Space Agency's new space surveillance and tracking programme. Three telescopes will be built at the Cooper's Island site, the first of a planned network of thirteen optical telescopes across five countries, giving the UK an independent view of objects large enough to be tracked. His Majesty unveiled a commemorative plaque and the Astra Carta seal during the visit, which was the final engagement of his state visit to Bermuda.

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In its account of the visit, the UK Space Agency said that "His Majesty also met with representatives from Odin Space, a UK start-up developing technology to detect and map lethal, non-trackable space debris, helping satellite operators, insurers, and governments better understand and respond to a threat that is invisible to existing tracking systems."

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Following the Astra Carta

Odin's involvement in the visit follows the company's attendance at the launch of the Astra Carta at Buckingham Palace on 28 June 2023. Convened by His Majesty through the Sustainable Markets Initiative, the Astra Carta sets out twelve articles covering debris mitigation, the adoption of universal standards, equitable access to orbit and accountability across the space value chain. More than 100 leaders from the global space sector attended the launch, among them Odin co-founder and CEO Dr James New, who was introduced to His Majesty at the reception.

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Dan Terrett, co-founder and COO of Odin Space: "It was an honour to be invited by the UK Space Agency and to have the opportunity to present the plates to His Majesty. Through the Astra Carta, His Majesty has taken a personal interest in the sustainability of the space environment, and I am proud that Odin is in a position to contribute to that effort. A one millimeter fragment goes straight through a satellite shield. Operators are flying through that population every day with no data on it, and at Odin we are changing that."

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Dr James New, co-founder and CEO of Odin Space: "The Astra Carta set out the principles in 2023. Project Nova is the UK putting infrastructure behind them. We were at the Palace for the launch three years ago, and being asked back to contribute to the first site is a good measure of how far the conversation has moved."

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Odin Space is grateful to the UK Space Agency for the invitation to take part.

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Image: His Majesty The King views Odin's hypervelocity impact plates at the UK Space Agency observatory on Cooper's Island, Bermuda, 2 May 2026. Credit: Government of Bermuda

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