Swiss satellite will clean up space junk

Swiss satellite will clean up space junk

Swiss scientists plan to launch a "Janitor Satellite" specially designed to get rid of space junk, the orbiting debris that can do serious and costly damage to valuable satellites or even manned space ships.Earth is surrounded by a cloud of more than half a million pieces of space junk, from bus-size spent rocket stages to tiny flecks of paint.

Orbiting at breakneck speeds, every last bit poses grave dangers and means huge insurance premiums for operational satellites, and it threatens the International Space Station, too. Every time two orbiting objects collide, they break up into thousands more pieces of debris.

In this illustration provided by the Swiss Space Center of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the CleanSpace One is chasing its target, one of the CubeSats launched by Switzerland in 2009. Photo: EPFL/Swiss Space Center




The CleanSpace One satellite is chasing its target, one of the CubeSats launched by Switzerland in 2009, top, unfolds its bio-inspired gripping mechanism just before reaching its target, centre, and, firmly attached to the debris, powers on its engines in order to reach the Earth atmosphere, bottom, where both satellites will be burnt during their descent. Photo: Swiss Space Centre