Europe is planning to save space and eliminate debris from the trash

Below is a transcript of the video

Narrator: Europe is one of the most important countries in the world for space travel. This is a mission called RemoveDEBRIS, and if everything goes as planned, it could save the future of space travel as we know it.

The objective of RemoveDEBRIS is precisely that. Demonstrate how we could eliminate space debris clogging Earth's orbit, including worn-out rockets and retired satellites. Even if you can not see it from the ground, there are more than half a million pieces of garbage in the space that fly around our planet, and most of them are concentrated in the low Earth orbit, where they turn at 28 000 kilometers at the time. Fast enough to fly from LA to London in just 19 minutes, but here's the problem. The low Earth orbit is our gateway to the universe. To go anywhere in space, be it the International Space Station, Mars or beyond, we must first cross that threshold, but if you have a pile of garbage blocking your way, it will be difficult. Even worse, experts, like astrophysicist Donald Kessler, fear that a single collision between two large objects could seal this opening forever, as this would trigger a chain reaction. One collision after another, after the other, which could produce thousands of additional debris. This domino effect is called "Kessler syndrome", according to Donald Kessler himself, and predicts that a low Earth orbit could be cluttered with space litter, making it too dangerous for a spacecraft, or also reducing its lifespan due to collisions.

It is there that the European mission comes into play RemoveDEBRIS. In 2018, the first of four stages of its garbage cleaning technology has been successfully tested. This is not an illustration. This is really happening in space. It's a net the size of a large dining room tablecloth, which traps a small spaceship that the mission team has set up for the experiment. Now it was the first of what will hopefully be many more tests, because in the future we will need a bigger net.

Guglielmo S. Aglietti : At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to be able to capture very large targets. Therefore, one of the potential targets already mentioned is potentially an old satellite, Envisat, which may have the size of a bus.

Narrator: Since the early 1990s, scientists have proposed ways to clean up waste in space. They thought of everything from lasers to robotic claws. But this is the first time a concept is actually tested in space. The team also hopes to test its three other technologies, which involve a harpoon, a navigation tool to badyze the size, distance and rotation of the trash, and a sail to slow the trash, so that it can come in, and burn in the atmosphere of the Earth. But all this technology is not the reason why this mission has become closer than ever before.

Aglietti: Everyone agrees that the removal of some of this debris is the right thing to do, but, obviously, the problem will be, you know, the cost.

Narrator: The RemoveDEBRIS project cost 15 million euros, or about 17 million US dollars.

Aglietti: The current mission was sponsored by the European community. Once again, we had ten partners working on this project and, overall, the cost of this project was about € 15 [million]. When you do that kind of mission, the reality is that the cost will be higher, so I think the different stakeholders around the world need to come together and decide how to fund this mission. We are talking not only about the UK, or maybe NASA, but also about China, Russia, and so on. The problem is, again, who will pay for this?

Narrator: Europe has taken the lead. Rest of the world, yours now.