Fishing for space debris
Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 8:50 am
This idea is so bizarre that I wouldn't believe it except that it was printed in the Feb. 14 issue of Aviation Week. A Japanese company has proposed to use a giant net similar to a fishing net to remove space debris from orbit. I haven't found this news item on the Web yet, so here it is:
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will be working with a venerable Japanese fishnet manufacturer on an orbital net to clean the spaceways of debris. Nitto Seimo Co., a century-old firm in Fukuyama, is working with JAXA engineers on a concept that would launch a metal net several kilometers long into orbit, unfurl it and then use an electrodynamic tether to haul it back into the atmosphere along with a load of space junk. According to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the net company believes it has a workable approach using a mesh of aluminum and steel fibers that can withstand the impact of fast-moving orbital debris. The space net builds on strong, compactly storable knotless nets first developed by Nitto Seimo in 1925, according to the newspaper.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will be working with a venerable Japanese fishnet manufacturer on an orbital net to clean the spaceways of debris. Nitto Seimo Co., a century-old firm in Fukuyama, is working with JAXA engineers on a concept that would launch a metal net several kilometers long into orbit, unfurl it and then use an electrodynamic tether to haul it back into the atmosphere along with a load of space junk. According to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the net company believes it has a workable approach using a mesh of aluminum and steel fibers that can withstand the impact of fast-moving orbital debris. The space net builds on strong, compactly storable knotless nets first developed by Nitto Seimo in 1925, according to the newspaper.