ClearSpace, a Swiss aerospace company, has managed to get permission from the European Space Agency (ESA) after its first program review of efforts to clean up trash from Earth orbit using a giant robotic satellite with a four-armed claw to capture space debris.
The company’s announcement this week said it received the green light from ESA in its first major review of the company’s plans for ClearSpace-1, a claw-like spacecraft that will capture space debris and send it into Earth’s atmosphere to burn. ClearSpace said that after passing proof-of-concept testing in October last year, it will now begin the process of completing designs, securing equipment and building the full-scale ClearSpace-1 for a planned launch in 2026.
“Together with an experienced European industrial team and close collaboration with ESA, we were able to achieve this important milestone in an efficient and technologically sound manner,” ClearSpace CTO and co-founder Muriel Richard-Noca said in a press release.
ESA had originally accepted the ClearSpace-1 project in September 2019, with a launch then scheduled for 2025. The contract between ESA and ClearSpace was worth around 86.2 million euros at the time. The company’s plan is to demonstrate the satellite’s grabbing ability by targeting the upper stage of a Vega Secondary Payload Adapter (Vespa), which is left after an ESA Vega rocket launched in 2013 with the ClearSpace-1 launch in 2026.
ESA has a keen interest in reducing the amount of space debris left behind by space operations in Earth orbit. It is certain that this and similar studies should inevitably increase, considering the enormously growing space junk with the increase in studies in space.
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