Europe Plans to Send a Self-Destructing Robot to Clean Up Space

Photo: ClearSpace/Facebook

Luc Piguet, ClearSpace founder, said, “This is the right time for such a mission. The space debris issue is more pressing than ever before. Today we have nearly 2,000 live satellites in space and more than 3,000 failed ones.”

Photo: European Space Agency

The first mission, set to launch in 2025, will target the Vespa, an ESA cone-shaped rocket left in orbit in 2013.

Currently, the robot can only clean up one piece of debris at a time, but there are plans for it to eventually collect multiple objects in one trip. And there is a lot of work to do — according to the ESA, there are currently over 900,000 pieces of debris larger than 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) floating into space.

“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. That is the current situation in orbit, and it cannot be allowed to continue,” explained ESA Director General Jan Wörner.

On top of removing the debris currently in Earth’s orbit, space agencies are looking to develop technologies that would avoid creating more space junk.