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An experiment aboard the International Space Station could help engineers find ways to eventually eliminate the amount of waste accumulated in orbit.
Engineers will perform exercises later this year in which they will use cameras and laser guidance to capture objects with a harpoon and a net attached to a spacecraft, called RemoveDEBRIS.
"Our experiments should start in September or October and they could last three or four months," said lead researcher Guglielmo Aglietti in Seeker. Aglietti is director of the Surrey Space Center at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. The center manages the mission and also built the microsatellites that RemoveDEBRIS will collect during the experiments.
Aglietti said that the moment of the experiments depends heavily on the adequate illumination of the sun.
Since 1957, humans have been putting objects into orbit. It is estimated that there are 500,000 debris around the Earth, including objects as large as dead satellites with small debris as screws.
Since orbiting debris travels at high speed, it is often a serious threat to operations in space. In 2009, the deceased Russian satellite Cosmos-2251 broke on the Iridium 33 operational satellite. And engineers periodically adjust the orbit of the International Space Station to dodge space debris.
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