ESA satellite to remove space junk

A new European mission aims to rendezvous a satellite with the hazardous space debris to render it harmless by netting it like fish. The European Space Agency (ESA)'s ambitious mission called e.DeOrbit would use a satellite to net space debris and remove it from low Earth orbit. The agency's Clean Space initiative is studying the e.DeOrbit mission for removing debris, aiming to reduce the environmental impact of the space industry on Earth and space alike. "Decades of launches have left Earth surrounded by a halo of space junk: more than 17,000 trackable objects larger than a coffee cup, which threaten working missions with catastrophic collision. Even a 1 cm nut could hit with the force of a hand grenade," ESA said. More

(Source: Business Standard - Jun 3)