ClearSpace-1

The ClearSpace-1 (ClearSpace One) mission is an ESA Space Debris Removal mission led by ClearSpace SA, a Swiss startup company. The mission's objective is to remove a VESPA (Vega Secondary Payload Adapter) from orbit. The mission aims to demonstrate technologies for rendezvous, capture, and deorbit for end-of-life satellites and builds the path to space junk remediation.Destructive reentry will destroy both the captured satellites and itself.

Overview

In 2019, the company won a tender for a European Space Agency Space Safety program contract in the Active Debris Removal/In-Orbit Servicing (ADRIOS) project. It will target the ESA's VESPA from the 2013 Vega flight VV02 for de-orbiting. The mission contract, worth 86 million euros, was signed in November 2020. As of January 2023, ClearSpace-1 is expected to be launched in 2026 on a Vega-C launch vehicle.

The VESPA that ClearSpace-1 hopes to capture is the size of a washing machine and weighs about 112 kilograms.  ClearSpace-1's device has been described as a four-armed "space claw" that will grip VESPA and steer it back into the Earth's atmosphere, where both will be destroyed via destructive reentry.

Other attempts

The ClearSpace-1 mission was preceded by e.Deorbit, a space debris removal mission under planning by ESA in 2010s. In the end, the e.Deorbit mission was not implemented, the satellite was not built and the whole e.Deorbit mission was cancelled. ClearSpace-1 continues the ESA space debris removal aspirations.

Tokyo-based Astroscale is a space debris removal company testing a removal device called End-of-Life Services (ELSA-d) that is currently used for demonstration purposes only and has not yet been successful.

In 2022, the UK Space Agency awarded £4 million to ClearSpace-1 and Astroscale to remove non-operational British satellites by 2026.

External links

• ClearSpace official homepage