ClearSpace, a Swiss company, and its commercial partners have passed their first significant program assessment with the European Space Agency (ESA) for their innovative mission to remove space junk from Earth orbit, as per a press release.
The project is a massive, robotic spacecraft with four arms that can gather space debris. The debris will be sent down toward Earth after being retrieved by the spacecraft, where it will likely burn up in the atmosphere.
Active Debris Removal
By fully supporting the upcoming ClearSpace-1 phase, ESA and the participating States have reaffirmed their commitment to active debris removal during the ESA Ministerial Council in November 2022.
ESA commissioned ClearSpace in 2020 to design, develop, launch, and operate a new deorbit mission that will safely guide a big piece of debris into Earth's atmosphere after re-engaging with it and capturing it in orbit.
ClearSpace has created a four-armed capture device for its robotic satellite as an important first step in the construction of this novel debris-removal mission.
In October 2022, this technology successfully completed proof-of-concept testing at ESA's ESTEC technology center in the Netherlands. This significant accomplishment helped the program review for ClearSpace to be approved.
With a launch date of as soon as 2026, ClearSpace is now qualified to go on to the next stage of ClearSpace-1, working with its industrial partners to complete the satellite's full design, purchase spacecraft equipment, and manufacture the engineering model servicer satellite.
"This is a major milestone for ClearSpace, setting us on course to become one of the world leading In-Orbit Servicing companies and is also a major step toward the resolution of the space debris issue," Luc Piguet, ClearSpace CEO and co-founder, said in a statement.
"Debris represents a growing threat to the satellite services we all depend on, including research on climate change, weather prediction, communication, and a host of other applications. The cost of inaction is only increasing."
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Cleaning the Space Environment
ESA emphasizes in its Space Debris Environment Report the need to start actively cleaning up the space environment, including removing larger debris objects from congested areas, to limit the massive increase of space debris.
According to NASA, there are now roughly 25,000 objects larger than 10 cm and over 500,000 objects in orbit that range in size from 1 cm to 10 cm. These fragments can travel faster than a bullet, crossing orbit at high to 33,000 mph.
At the same time, 30,000 objects larger than 4 inches (10 cm) in size are being monitored by the US Global Surveillance Network in Earth orbit.
ESA also reported that there are one million particles currently circling the Earth at a speed of 0.4 inches (1 cm).
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