Dr Derek Muller
On October the fourth 1957, the first satellite - Sputnik 1 - was launched into space.

(Man speaks in Russian)

Dr Derek Muller
Although it burned in the atmosphere three months later, many satellites launched since then have not, leaving us with a virtual junkyard orbiting the Earth. Now, those debris represent a real threat to the television, communications and GPS satellites, not to mention the astronauts. But, luckily, the Swiss have a plan to clean up space. So I've come to Lausanne to figure out how they're going to do it.

NARRATION
Most of the space junk orbiting Earth is within 2,000km of the Earth's surface.

Dr Derek Muller
There are over 22,000 objects larger than this softball, and over half a million larger than this marble. Now, all of the orbiting debris is going about 7km/s to 8km/s. But, since the objects are moving relative to one another, the average speed of a collision is about 10km/s. In an object this size, going about 10km/s has about the same impact as a mid-sized car going nearly 200km/h. That's enough force to destroy any satellite in orbit.

NARRATION
As a veteran of four space flights, Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier knows the dangers firsthand.

Prof Claude Nicollier
All of the large debris are tracked by radar. We know their orbit exactly. And sometimes we have to do a small change in the orbital characteristics of our spaceship and space shuttle because it is foreseen that next day or two days later we're going to have a close approach with the debris such that NASA was not feeling too good about that, and we changed little bit our orbit so as to make that distance a little bit larger.

NARRATION
Fortunately, to date there haven't been any serious collisions with manned spacecraft. But, in 2009, a single crash between two satellites... added a whopping 2,000 new pieces of debris.

Prof Claude Nicollier
If we don't do anything, space will become soon inaccessible because of the large amount of debris and the high risk of collision.

NARRATION
So the Swiss, determined to do something about the problem, are extending their clean-country reputation into outer space.

Prof Claude Nicollier
Swiss Space Center has launched a program called CleanSpace One that is a demonstrator of a capability to remove debris. And the idea is to go and remove one of two satellites that are from Switzerland.

NARRATION
One of these two satellites is appropriately named 'Swiss Cube'.

Muriel Richard
Swiss Cube is a small satellite, which you see... This is a one-to-one model. So this is in the right scale. It belongs to Switzerland. So we had to do something about this.

Dr Derek Muller
You can't have Swiss junk just floating around in space.

Muriel Richard
No. No. That's not acceptable.

NARRATION
So the mission for CleanSpace One is a proof of concept that a janitor satellite can be sent into space to grab a piece of space junk - in this case, Swiss Cube - and bring it back into the atmosphere, where it'll burn up. But, to rendezvous with the space junk, the small janitor needs an incredibly efficient engine. Working on the challenge is Professor Herbert Shea, an expert in micromechanics.

Dr Derek Muller
This is your propulsion system?

Prof Herbert Shea
This is our propulsion system. Little silicon micromachine chips. We use something called 'electric propulsion', which allows you to emit single atoms that are electrically charged and use an electric field to accelerate them out. So, you're not burning them - you're emitting your propellant. And that's what many small satellites use, but nothing has to date been able to make something this small. So we do 0mph to 60mph in about three days.

Dr Derek Muller
(Laughs)

Prof Herbert Shea
But, laughable as it indeed seems to all of us, because there's no friction in space or negligible friction, then, if we wait six months, we have a huge change in speed. And that's how the mission will be done.

NARRATION
Once propelled into the correct orbit, the next challenge is to grab the space junk - an object tumbling around uncontrollably - without creating more debris.

Prof Herbert Shea
Our idea is to use a very compliant system. Kind of think of an octopus arm. An octopus arm is very soft. But it can grab any strange shape and wrap around it and hold it. And you'll have a grabber that looks... The real one will be more sophisticated, but it looks like this - so it's basically very, very soft elastomer. I'll turn it on in a minute. You can see how soft it is. And the idea is this will be rolled up so it doesn't take up much room, and we'll have ten of these in a series. Get into space, unroll it, and then these things can open. When you turn the voltage on, you're able to open this. And you turn the voltage off, and it wraps around and it holds the satellite.

Dr Derek Muller
Is this gonna be a little bit like those games where you're trying to pick up a stuffed toy in the arcade and drop it somewhere?

Prof Herbert Shea
(Laughs)

Dr Derek Muller
Is it gonna be like that?

Prof Herbert Shea
Essentially, yes.

Dr Derek Muller
'Cause those games... those games can be incredibly frustrating with those little arms.

Prof Herbert Shea
They're built to be frustrating.

Dr Derek Muller
(Laughs)

Dr Derek Muller
Whereas this, this is built to be...

Prof Herbert Shea
This is built to succeed.

Dr Derek Muller
Can I ask, has anyone ever successfully gone up and grabbed a piece of space junk and gotten rid of it?

Muriel Richard
To my knowledge, no. It's never been done before.

Dr Derek Muller
Uh, and it grabs on.

NARRATION
Ambitious as it may sound, the Swiss know how vast this junkyard is, so their ultimate aims are more modest.

Prof Claude Nicollier
Hopefully, starting in, say, 2020, to do a systematic removal of the large debris at the rate of five or more per year, in order to contain the increase of the debris density in the Earth orbit. Then space will continue becoming accessible. Of course, the exposure to the space environment is a wonderful thing.

STORY CONTACTS

Prof Claude Nicollier 
ESA Astronaut 
Technical Advisor, CleanSpace One 

Muriel Richard 
Engineer and Project Manager
Clean Space One
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne 

Professor Herbert Shea 
Microsystems for Space Technologies Laboratory
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne