Russian cleaner to clear away any garbage from orbit

The Russian State Corporation Roscosmos develops a project of a space cleaner, which will be able to clear away space garbage with a jet stream. The matter is extremely urgent as in mid-2016 there were 17,800 objects with the size of more than 10cm in near-Earth orbits. Each launch leaves 2-3 new objects in orbit: missile stages, boosters, drop tanks. They may move round the Earth for a long time, creating problems for orbital stations and satellites. Most of the garbage has been left by the US, Russia, and China.
The device will be equipped with ion engines on the opposite sides, which will be switched on as approaching the space objects. Gradually they will lose speed and orbit. It will take about 15 days depending on mass and dimensions.
Now only two countries in the world - namely Russia and the US - are able to track the level of space pollution. And timely detection of garbage in space is utterly important. As uncontrolled objects may deviate from the course and turn out to be in the way of a spacecraft.

Pravda.Ru