The ESA Starts a New Commercial Sector in Space: Removing Space Debris (esa.int) 47
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike brings some big news from outer space. European Space Agency announced this week that they're signing "a €86 million ($102 million USD) contract with an industrial team led by the Swiss start-up ClearSpace SA to purchase a unique service: the first removal of an item of space debris from orbit" in the year 2025.
"With this contract signature, a critical milestone for establishing a new commercial sector in space will be achieved..." In almost 60 years of space activities, more than 5,550 launches have resulted in some 42,000 tracked objects in orbit, of which about 23,000 remain in space and are regularly tracked. With today's annual launch rates averaging nearly 100, and with break-ups continuing to occur at average historical rates of four to five per year, the number of debris objects in space will steadily increase. ClearSpace-1 will demonstrate the technical ability and commercial capacity to significantly enhance the long-term sustainability of spaceflight...
"This is the right time for such a mission..." says Luc Piguet, founder and CEO of ClearSpace. [I]n the coming years the number of satellites will increase by an order of magnitude, with multiple mega-constellations made up of hundreds or even thousands of satellites planned for low Earth orbit to deliver wide-coverage, low-latency telecommunications and monitoring services. The need is clear for a 'tow truck' to remove failed satellites from this highly trafficked region...." Supported within ESA's new Space Safety programme, the aim is to contribute actively to cleaning up space, while also demonstrating the technologies needed for debris removal.
"Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water," says ESA Director General Jan Wörner. "That is the current situation in orbit, and it cannot be allowed to continue. ESA's Member States have given their strong support to this new mission, which also points the way forward to essential new commercial services in the future..."
"NASA and ESA studies show that the only way to stabilise the orbital environment is to actively remove large debris items. Accordingly we will be continuing our development of essential guidance, navigation and control technologies and rendezvous and capture methods through a new project called Active Debris Removal/ In-Orbit Servicing — ADRIOS. The results will be applied to ClearSpace-1. This new mission, implemented by an ESA project team, will allow us to demonstrate these technologies, achieving a world first in the process."
The ClearSpace-1 mission will target the Vespa (Vega Secondary Payload Adapter) upper stage left in an approximately 800 km by 660 km altitude orbit after the second flight of ESA's Vega launcher back in 2013. With a mass of 100 kg, the Vespa is close in size to a small satellite, while its relatively simple shape and sturdy construction make it a suitable first goal, before progressing to larger, more challenging captures by follow-up missions — eventually including multi-object capture. The ClearSpace-1 'chaser' will be launched into a lower 500-km orbit for commissioning and critical tests before being raised to the target orbit for rendezvous and capture using a quartet of robotic arms under ESA supervision. The combined chaser plus Vespa will then be deorbited to burn up in the atmosphere.
"With this contract signature, a critical milestone for establishing a new commercial sector in space will be achieved..." In almost 60 years of space activities, more than 5,550 launches have resulted in some 42,000 tracked objects in orbit, of which about 23,000 remain in space and are regularly tracked. With today's annual launch rates averaging nearly 100, and with break-ups continuing to occur at average historical rates of four to five per year, the number of debris objects in space will steadily increase. ClearSpace-1 will demonstrate the technical ability and commercial capacity to significantly enhance the long-term sustainability of spaceflight...
"This is the right time for such a mission..." says Luc Piguet, founder and CEO of ClearSpace. [I]n the coming years the number of satellites will increase by an order of magnitude, with multiple mega-constellations made up of hundreds or even thousands of satellites planned for low Earth orbit to deliver wide-coverage, low-latency telecommunications and monitoring services. The need is clear for a 'tow truck' to remove failed satellites from this highly trafficked region...." Supported within ESA's new Space Safety programme, the aim is to contribute actively to cleaning up space, while also demonstrating the technologies needed for debris removal.
"Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water," says ESA Director General Jan Wörner. "That is the current situation in orbit, and it cannot be allowed to continue. ESA's Member States have given their strong support to this new mission, which also points the way forward to essential new commercial services in the future..."
"NASA and ESA studies show that the only way to stabilise the orbital environment is to actively remove large debris items. Accordingly we will be continuing our development of essential guidance, navigation and control technologies and rendezvous and capture methods through a new project called Active Debris Removal/ In-Orbit Servicing — ADRIOS. The results will be applied to ClearSpace-1. This new mission, implemented by an ESA project team, will allow us to demonstrate these technologies, achieving a world first in the process."
The ClearSpace-1 mission will target the Vespa (Vega Secondary Payload Adapter) upper stage left in an approximately 800 km by 660 km altitude orbit after the second flight of ESA's Vega launcher back in 2013. With a mass of 100 kg, the Vespa is close in size to a small satellite, while its relatively simple shape and sturdy construction make it a suitable first goal, before progressing to larger, more challenging captures by follow-up missions — eventually including multi-object capture. The ClearSpace-1 'chaser' will be launched into a lower 500-km orbit for commissioning and critical tests before being raised to the target orbit for rendezvous and capture using a quartet of robotic arms under ESA supervision. The combined chaser plus Vespa will then be deorbited to burn up in the atmosphere.
Do this for Earth! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exactly the kind of thing we need for Earth. You then just need to make it a closed system by giving the bill to the polluters.
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This is exactly the kind of thing we need down on Earth.*
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Wrong. DSL is still in use to this day.
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DSL wasn't offered everywhere... and a cable option passes most of the places that do have that as an option.
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So what magical system is going to bring reliable high-speed Internet connectivity to our winter house in Peru and make Starlink obsolete? Currently the two options are bog-slow and expensive satellite, or an over-congested 3G tower. What new alternative do you see coming?
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Meanwhile USA spacefArce is trying to find new ways of filling out orbit with millions of piece of battle debris because ERECTIONS (seriously because dickheads). Seriously why bother cleaning up those debris, what a waste of time, when you have a USA agency working hard at creating millions more bits of debri. Story should read ESA starts new mission in futility, cleaning up space debris when the USA is working just as hard as it can, in the most insane manner possible, to create more, so much, that any dev
Space Is Alot Bigger Than The Oceans (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like an excuse to get more money from its' citizens for something that doesn't matter.
Maybe they are looking for tech they can use from what is floating around out there. They probably will steal some functional stuff too.
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Ya, Space is a lot (two words) bigger than the oceans but, to quote Rick Sanchez, "There's literally everything in Space." [youtube.com]
Re: Space Is Alot Bigger Than The Oceans (Score:2)
Re: Space Is Alot Bigger Than The Oceans (Score:1)
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Also, access to new tech is better done here on earth, not in old satellites tumbling out of control.
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The mission is to grab hold of a piece of debris and forcibly deorbit it: i.e. slow it down and let it burn up in the atmosphere. A recovery mission would require a far larger and more complex vehicle that can reenter and land.
"doesn't matter" is a gross underestimation of the problem. While we're not at Kessler Syndrome yet (i.e. orbital launch becomes untenably dangerous due to the high probability of a catastrophic collision), space agencies already take measures to reduce the amount of debris they put i
Bravo ESA (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly what the *SA's of the world should be doing.
And NOT competing with Spacex.
It is long past time to stop funding SLS, Ariane, etc and instead fund private industry to build the tech we need.
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Well, SpaceX needs this... otherwise they'd be constantly avoiding the junk that would be on path to hit them. Remember what really wiped out Sirius' LEO project.
Leisure Suit Larry won't like that (Score:2)
Not one bit.
Re:Leisure Suit Larry won't like that-Roger Wilco (Score:3)
You mean Roger Wilco.
Planetes is coming closer to reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Yupi! Andale andale andale arriba arriba Yija!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Someone always brings up Planetes.
But you're not wrong.
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.
That makes more sense than bringing it back to Earth, too expensive and time consuming.
May find some interesting stuff. (Score:1)
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Well, this is space-government work... US Space Force should kick in some money if they can't join.
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Space Farce will only get involved it there is some way to enrich military contractors, they really have no other purpose.
Much simpler solution (Score:4, Funny)
They spent, and will spend, all that money designing robots when all they needed to do was put sharks with freaking lasers on their heads into space.
Start with StarLink (Score:3)
We used to be able to enjoy the starts. This crap and other mega-constellations are taking that legacy from us.
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Re: Start with StarLink (Score:2)
Or we could, you know, charge these guys a tax and use that money to put orbiting telescopes.
Or Elon Musk could just put up some orbiting telescopes and call it good.
Re: Start with StarLink (Score:2)
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Really? You can't enjoy the stars any longer knowing that there are satellites passing overhead? Sorry, but that's just weird. I actually enjoy watching the IIS pass overhead.
They already made a TV series about this (Score:1)
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That's because it sucked. Really, I was in high school and the absurdities were enough to piss me off. Their capsule was a frelling cement truck mixer, for cripes sakes.
The say the solution to pollution... (Score:2)
... is dilution.
But the problem is no one dilutes properly. :-) it's too expensive. So no rockets full of spent nuclear fuel, toxic plastics and dioxins are headed into the sun. Nor do we inject pollutants into magma chambers hundreds of kilometres deep underground. Instead, we dump it in the oceans.
So maybe dilution isn't the solution to pollution -- it's just a workaround. Maybe 'restoration' is the true solution. Bombard nuclear fuel to transmute it into harmless materials, and mix it with the tailings
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The sun is too hard to get to, the delta V change is something like three times what it takes to get to Saturn.
Best long-term strategy for disposal of nuclear waste is to vitrify it and deposit it at the bottom of the oceanic trenches so that it will eventually be sucked into the mantle.
The Vega rocket, you say? (Score:2)
Seems like a waste to me! (Score:1)
Anyone remember Salvage-1 from 1979? & others? (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] "The pilot centers on Harry Broderick (Andy Griffith) who owns the Jettison Scrap and Salvage Co. and is a specialist in reclaiming trash and junk [from space] to sell as scrap. His dream is to recover equipment left on the Moon during Apollo Program missions. ... Harry builds a spaceship dubbed Vulture, made completely from reclaimed salvage and powered by a chemical called monohydrazine. The main body of Vulture is composed of a Texaco gasoline semi-trailer tank truck wit
How many VESPA-like things are there? (Score:2)
I thought that some concern was already being given to de-orbiting (or parking) satellites and spent stages for the past few decades - and this VESPA device was launched in 2013.
Now, I can imagine that this VESPA thing - an adapter to allow multiple payloads to hitch a ride on the primary payload - might not have much propellant, so the idea of giving it the ability to de-orbit itself after use would have increased the cost of the launch tremendously. But now that cost has to be paid with an extra launch t
Finally? (Score:2)
My father and I did a "radio" style play for the family when I was in my teens, about space garbage collectors... and that was in the sixties.
I claim first use of the idea!