A Switzerland-based spaceflight company is finalizing plans with Canada over a potential Launch site for a new private space plane, which is slated to launch a satellite to clean up space junk by 2018.
The company, Swiss Space Systems (S3), plans to launch the new Clean Space One satellite using the European Suborbital Reusable Shuttle, a small space plane the firm is developing for low-cost launches off the back of a modified Airbus A300 jumbo jet.
CleanSpace One is a 66-pound (30 kilograms) technology demonstration spacecraft designed to link up with Switzerland's out-of-commission SwissCube nanosatellite — a small cube that measures 3.93 inches (10 centimeters) on each side — and safely de-orbit the target craft. The mission aims to demonstrate orbital identification and rendezvous with an uncooperative target and has an estimated cost of about 15 million Swiss Francs ($16 million).
CleanSpace One is chasing its target, one of the CubeSats launched by Switzerland in 2009 (Swisscube-1) or 2010 (TIsat-1). Image Released Feb. 15, 2012.
CleanSpace One is chasing its target, one of the CubeSats launched by Switzerland in 2009 (Swisscube-1) or 2010 (TIsat-1). Image released Feb. 15, 2012.
SOAR developer S3 is CleanSpace One's primary sponsor, and will pay $5.3 million for assembling and testing the satellite's components and ground-based command operations. The company has also set aside $10.7 million for its own SOAR launch system.
North America and Spain are home to candidate launch sites for the SOAR space plane, so S3 officials have been talking to the U.S. government's Federal Aviation Administration, its Canadian equivalent, Transport Canada and the European Aviation Safety Agency, of which Spain is a member state.
"In 2018, [CleanSpace One] this will be one of our first launches, if not the first one," Grégoire Lorétan, head of S3 communications, told SPACE.com in an email. Lorétan added that S3 would have an announcement about a partnership with Canada in "a few weeks."
S3's SOAR space plane is designed to launch payloads of up to 551 pounds (250 kg) into low-Earth orbit. Because CleanSpace One is being built with commercial off-the-shelf parts, its weight is a low 66 pounds.
So, Clean country Switzerland now plan to clean the junk in the space. Amazing
