The European space Agency has signed a contract with the Swiss startup ClearSpace and provided $68 million in funding for the project. This is the first mission to clean up near-earth space from failed satellites and other space debris. The device itself, which will do this, received the working name "Claw" (Claw).
Today, 2,800 working man-made earth satellites account for more than 3,000 "dead", as well as 900,000 debris larger than 10 cm, which are a real danger. There is also other space debris, but ESA has decided to focus on the largest objects for now. The mission of ClearSpace-1 is to catch dead satellites and push them out of orbit so that they burn up in the planet's atmosphere. The first target for the Claw is already known – VESPA. A secondary Vega payload adapter used in the launch of the ESA Vega rocket in 2013. The weight of this spent device is 112 kg, which is comparable to the parameters of most satellites. ClearSpace has already created an animation that shows how the Claw will grab an item and launch it along a new trajectory. It is expected that the ClearSpace-1 mission will start in 2025, and now the search for the next sponsors is underway. This is a long-term project that is designed to solve an important task that will soon become critical.