Good News Stories From Around the World
A five-year mission to boldly go… collecting garbage
The European Space Agency (ESA) is to launch a multi-armed robotic junk collector (illustrated) into orbit in its first mission to remove space debris circulating around Earth.
After 60 years of manned launches, there are rocket remnants, thousands of defunct satellites and hundreds of thousands of fragments cluttering geostationary and other earth orbits.
The debris collector will blast off in 2025 to grab just a single piece of junk, called Vespa, which was left by ESA’s Vega launcher in 2013. The agency hopes the mission will pave the way for a wide-reaching clear-up operation.
“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,” says Jan Wörner, ESA’s director general. “That is the current situation in orbit.” [Source: The Guardian]
