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Humanity has created a real mess of planet earth. Our trash is just about everywhere, from city streets to the most remote areas of the oceans, and this trend is also continuing in space. There is an incredible amount of random waste floating in the Earth's orbit, including missing satellites and fragments of other spacecraft that have crossed and made things worse.
Now, a new system to remove large pieces of space debris has finally been tested and seems to work. This is part of a larger project that is appropriately called RemoveDEBRIS, and a recent test of the internet-based system has managed to capture a test object that it will soon dump into the Earth's atmosphere.
The good thing about space waste is that we do not have to bring it back to Earth to get rid of it. Friction with the Earth's atmosphere can cremate many pieces of waste into orbit as long as we can shoot them down a bit. This is what this new space network system does by interrupting the orbital trajectory of the object and making it fall much faster.
For this first real test run, a small dummy satellite has been deployed. An umbrella-like net was then pulled over the object and subsequently wrapped tightly. That's exactly what a system should do when it encounters a real space basket, and it seems quite capable.
The larger RemoveDEBRIS project is a collaboration between many countries and many of them have proposed innovative solutions to the problem of space waste. In addition to the net system, a harpoon has been proposed to embellish larger objects and pull them to Earth for burning.
In the future, scientists who have conducted the mosquito capture trials will try a few other techniques, including the harpoon, to assess the feasibility. The team will also test the characteristics of the spacecraft, allowing them to locate and intercept specific elements of the space.
Image Source: Surrey Space Center
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