06-01-2023, 09:13 PM
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-space-tractor-sci-fi.html
On Feb. 10, 2009, disaster struck hundreds of miles above the Siberian Peninsula. That evening, a defunct Russian satellite orbiting Earth crashed into a communications satellite called Iridium 33 moving at a speed of thousands of miles per hour. Both spacecraft erupted into a rain of shrapnel, sending more than 1,800 chunks of debris spiraling around the globe.
No other spacecraft (or humans) were harmed, but for many aerospace engineers, the event was a sign of things to come. Space, it seemed, was getting crowded.
Hammerl and a team led by Professor Hanspeter Schaub have a plan for stopping those cascades before they start. The researchers are drawing on one of the oldest tropes in science fiction: tractor beams like the ones the Starship Enterprise uses to safely move asteroids out of the way.
Well, I'd certainly like to see this . Using tractor beams to clear out space junk may not be as spectacular as pulling the Millennium Falcon into the Death Star - but, it is likely to be more immediately useful!
Of course, it's not the only solution to clear out space junk - but, some of the others seem quite low-tech by comparison, so it'll be interesting to see which one wins out.
On Feb. 10, 2009, disaster struck hundreds of miles above the Siberian Peninsula. That evening, a defunct Russian satellite orbiting Earth crashed into a communications satellite called Iridium 33 moving at a speed of thousands of miles per hour. Both spacecraft erupted into a rain of shrapnel, sending more than 1,800 chunks of debris spiraling around the globe.
No other spacecraft (or humans) were harmed, but for many aerospace engineers, the event was a sign of things to come. Space, it seemed, was getting crowded.
Hammerl and a team led by Professor Hanspeter Schaub have a plan for stopping those cascades before they start. The researchers are drawing on one of the oldest tropes in science fiction: tractor beams like the ones the Starship Enterprise uses to safely move asteroids out of the way.
Well, I'd certainly like to see this . Using tractor beams to clear out space junk may not be as spectacular as pulling the Millennium Falcon into the Death Star - but, it is likely to be more immediately useful!
Of course, it's not the only solution to clear out space junk - but, some of the others seem quite low-tech by comparison, so it'll be interesting to see which one wins out.
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