In the frame of the ESA campaign “System Studies for the Circular Economy in Space”, Thales Alenia Space proposed to develop its ideas exploring the ways to enable Design For Circularity initiative focusing on the definition of a mission design and concept of operations of a Recycling Space Plant involving a solar furnace for materials melting. However, beyond the scope of this particular ESA initiative, Thales Alenia Space has been leading many external and internal activities on the way to define and develop a circular space economy.

Consequently Thales Alenia Space seized the opportunity to propose an advanced concept aiming to bring one of the key technologies to close the loop of the circularity: the orbital recycling. Indeed recycling in space has not been so much studied so far and Thales Alenia Space proposed to explore the concept of a recycling space plant mission within two complementary activities: 

• Recycling Space Plant: to propose a preliminary design for a Recycling Space Plant system. 
• Design For Circularity (D4C): to identify the materials and methods for on-orbit recycling as well as the impacts of D4C initiative in the broad space ecosystem.