A giant claw will be sent into space to collect debris from past missions

The European Space Agency will send a huge claw into space to remove the accumulation of space debris that has accumulated across the planet.

The ClearSpace-1 mission will target the Vespa (Vega Secondary Payload Adapter), which remained in orbit after Vega’s second flight in 201.

The agency is using a Swiss start-up, called ClearSpace SA, to run the business. It is expected to begin its mission in 2025.

“ClearSpace-1 will demonstrate the technical capability and commercial capability to significantly improve the long-term sustainability of space flight,” ESA said in its announcement.

“With this signing of the contract, a fundamental milestone will be reached for the creation of a new commercial sector in space.

“Buying the mission in an end-to-end service contract, rather than developing an ESA-defined spacecraft for internal operations, represents a new way for ESA to do business.”

In total, 86 million euros (around 77 million pounds) will be spent on the mission and the service may be needed more regularly in the future.

In the last 60 years during which humans have organized 5,550 space launches, 42,000 objects have been tracked into orbit, of which 23,000 remain in space and are regularly tracked.

Currently, there are around 100 launches each year, and with 4-5 debris breaks occurring at the same rate, ESA predicts the number of objects in space will steadily increase.

Another potential accident a week later, between a part of a discarded Chinese rocket and a decommissioned Soviet satellite, could have created countless other collisions due to the accumulation of wrecks and as such, could have increased the amount of debris in space up to one hundred.

It has also been suggested that the domino effect of such an accident could result in a layer of space debris around the planet that would make space launches impossible.