The payload adapter, which is the target of the European Debris Collection Mission, may have been damaged by the impact of the debris. On August 22, the European Space Agency reported that 12 days ago, the US Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron, in charge of space exploration activities, had discovered several pieces of debris near a larger payload adapter called the Vespa. Low Earth orbit since Vega’s launch ten years ago.

According to the ESA, the new debris likely came from a Vespa that collided with debris too small to track. Subsequent follow-ups by European institutions as well as Space Defense Squadron 18 show that the payload adapter remains intact. ESA does not say how many Vespa wrecks were tracked.

The case is ironic as the Vespa adapter is the target of an ESA-backed mission to take it out of orbit. In 2020, ESA selected Swiss startup ClearSpace for the mission to capture and de-orbit the 113-kilogram adapter and awarded it a contract worth 86 million euros ($93 million).

This mission, called ClearSpace-1, passed verification in late 2022, marking the end of the initial development phase. ClearSpace-1 is scheduled to launch with the Vega C rocket in 2026. The company raised 26.7 million euros in January to support the mission.

In a statement made by the ESA, it was stated that it is too early to know whether the impact of the debris will affect the ClearSpace-1 mission: “Development of the ClearSpace-1 mission will continue as planned while additional data is collected about the event. ESA and industry partners are carefully assessing the impact of the event on the mission.” ESA adds that this analysis will take several weeks to complete.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has prioritized space safety, such as orbital debris reduction and recovery. In July, ESA conducted an “assisted reentry” of the Earth science spacecraft Aeolus, which ran out of fuel to make a deliberate and targeted reentry at the end of its mission. As part of this effort, the spacecraft returned to the desolate area to avoid any risk to humans on the ground from the spacecraft debris that survived the reentry.

ESA announced plans for the Zero Waste Agreement at the Paris Air Show in June with the support of three major European satellite manufacturers: Airbus Defense and Space, OHB and Thales Alenia Space. Details on the contract have not yet been released, but the goal is to prevent new debris from forming in Earth’s orbit.

“The principle is very simple,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA Managing Director, at the event where the contract was announced. “The Zero Debris Regulation is the principle by which we want to ensure that there is zero debris in space.”

But ESA has also contributed to the orbital debris problem. The defunct Envisat spacecraft was left in low-Earth orbit when it malfunctioned ten years after its launch in 2002. Envisat’s large size, which is expected to stay in orbit for up to 150 years, makes it a potential source of debris from collision-like collisions that damaged the Vespa adapter.

A 2020 study by a group of space sustainability experts placed Envisat 21st on a list of the 50 “statistically worrying” debris objects in Earth orbit. Envisat was the tallest satellite on the list after the Zenit family of 20 rockets, all in similar orbits. Source