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Paris, November 27, 2020. – The European Space Agency (ESA) has entered into a contract with a consortium led by Swiss start-up ClearSpace for the world’s first space debris removal mission, ESA said. The contract has a value of 86 million euros.
ClearSpace will launch ClearSpace-1, the first mission to remove space debris, in 2025, ESA said.
The purpose of the mission is to collect a higher Vega stage, the so-called Vespa, which was left in space at an altitude of between 660 and 800 kilometers with the second Vega launch in 2013. The object, which ClearSpace-1 it will be seized, is the size of a small satellite and will burn with ClearSpace-1 when they both reenter the atmosphere.
After nearly 60 years of space exploration, more than 5,550 launches have left some 42,000 known objects in space, ESA said. With around 100 launches per year now, this number will continually increase.
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