This Giant Claw Could Soon Clean Up Space Junk - ExtremeTech

Cleaning up space to prevent collisions is a tall order, but the ESA has just funded a giant space claw that could show the way forward. .

Some objects will fall back to Earth naturally as their orbit decays, but the volume of space debris is still moving in the wrong direction, and space is about to get a lot more crowded with megaconstellations from SpaceX and others. .

To combat the increase in space junk, the ESA has awarded a €86 million contract to Switzerland-based ClearSpace SA to run the first-ever active debris removal operation.

Some scientists even worry that a chain reaction of space collisions know as the Kessler effect could render the space around Earth unusable for years or decades