The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a contract with the Swiss company ClearSpace worth €86 million for the cleaning of space debris. ESA added that the project, which is the first of its kind in the world, and in which Czechia participates, is planned for 2025.
During the ClearSpace-1 mission, a cleaning satellite and a VESPA adapter will meet in orbit. VESPA adapter remained in space at an altitude of about 801 to 664 kilometers in 2013 after the flight of the Vega rocket carrier. The satellite will then capture the adapter and enter the atmosphere with it in a controlled manner, where both devices disappear.
“Space debris removal will be a sought-after industry in the future,” ESA chief Jan Wörner told at the press conference, adding that the European agency wanted to be prepared.
“We’ve known space garbage since Sputnik,” Wörner said, referring to the Soviet launch of the first satellite into Earth’s orbit in 1957.
“Many people at the time thought they had seen Sputnik in the sky. In reality, however, it was not Sputnik, they were the upper stages of the carrier,“ he explained.
According to Wörner, the danger is not only small fragments and small debris but also old and non-functional satellites, adapters used for carrying and unloading cargo, or the upper stages of rocket launchers. For this reason, ESA has also decided to try removing space debris.
In addition to Switzerland, seven other countries participate in the project, namely Czechia, Britain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Sweden.
Title image: A man walks in front of a slide show depicting a representation of the ESA Gaia Project, at the ESA center in Villanueva de la Canada, near Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. the European Space Agency said Wednesday its mission to chart more than 1 billion stars in the Milky Way is on track for completion in a year’s time. The agency released the first data from its ongoing effort, called the Gaia Mission, to draw the biggest and most precise three-dimensional map of our galaxy. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)
