Target of European Space Debris Removal Mission Is Itself Hit by Space Debris
- Rocket piece meant to be plucked from space was shattered
- ‘Underlines’ importance of space clearing program, ESA says
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A piece of space debris being monitored by the European Space Agency as part of a mission to remove trash from space was hit by another piece of debris, splintering the object into more pieces.
ESA confirmed Tuesday that the US’s 18th Space Defense Squadron, which tracks objects in orbit, spotted a number of new pieces in the vicinity of a payload adapter named VESPA that the agency had planned to pluck from space. The most likely cause of those new fragments is “the hypervelocity impact of a small, untracked object” ramming into VESPA, according to ESA.