Japan Sends Its New Space Junk-Fighting Technology To The ISS (phys.org) 64
What floats 249 miles in the sky, stretches 2,300 feet, and took over 10 years to develop?
An anonymous reader quotes Phys.org:
Japan launched a cargo ship Friday bound for the International Space Station, carrying a
"space junk" collector that was made with the help of a fishnet company... Researchers are using a so-called electrodynamic tether made from thin wires of stainless steel and aluminum... The electricity generated by the tether as it swings through the Earth's magnetic field is expected to have a slowing effect on the space junk, which should, scientists say, pull it into a lower and lower orbit. Eventually the detritus will enter the Earth's atmosphere, burning up harmlessly long before it has a chance to crash to the planet's surface.
Bloomberg has some interesting background: The experiment is part of an international cleanup effort planning to safeguard astronauts and about $900 billion worth of space stations, satellites and other infrastructure... Satellite collisions and testing of anti-satellite weapons have added thousands of debris fragments in the atmosphere since 2007, according to NASA... With debris traveling at up to 17,500 miles an hour, the impact of even a marble-size projectile can cause catastrophic damage.
Bloomberg has some interesting background: The experiment is part of an international cleanup effort planning to safeguard astronauts and about $900 billion worth of space stations, satellites and other infrastructure... Satellite collisions and testing of anti-satellite weapons have added thousands of debris fragments in the atmosphere since 2007, according to NASA... With debris traveling at up to 17,500 miles an hour, the impact of even a marble-size projectile can cause catastrophic damage.
Re: (Score:1)
SAME - - - SERIOUSLY OFF-TOPIC - - - lost my mod points - otherwise a -5 for you
Re: (Score:1)
SERIOUSLY OFF-TOPIC - - - lost my mod points - otherwise a -5 for you
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How fast (Score:4)
Relative to the earth. I imagine that if you're going the opposite direction it could be pretty cosmic. I saw a picture of a space shuttle windshield that had been hit by a paint chip. It didn't quite break through. A frigging paint chip.
Re:How fast (Score:4, Informative)
Relative to the centre of the Earth, which can be considered stationary for this frame of reference [wikimedia.org].
A spot at sea level on the equator is moving about 1000 miles an hour in the same frame of reference.
17,500 mph is the same speed as the ISS. At the distance of 22,236 miles, where the telecommunications satellites are, that drops to 6876 mph.
Re:Why bother? Trump will cancel NASA (Score:4, Interesting)
Japan looks to be joining the manned space club that the USA has decided to leave.
about time (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:about time (Score:4, Interesting)
Get a grip and RTFA and links - - - as "the satellite was removed from the rocket" and put into the planned orbit about 15 minutes after the liftoff - Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-j... [phys.org]
It's NOT attached to the ISS, it's detached and 'doing it's own thing'.
Besides, there is an on-going research project to equip the ISS with proven ion propulsion units to provide 'station keeping' capability with the extremely efficient ion engine technology - - - just a matter of time before the requirement of using the supply launch vehicles' secondary engines to boost the ISS into a clean orbit will be a 'thing of the past'.
Granted, the high-impulse delta-V of the secondary engines will still be needed for 'emergency' maneuvers to avoid the occasional wandering debris near-encounters, but the day-to-day orbital maintenance of the station can be relegated to very low cost ion engine technology.
cheers . . .
Re:about time (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect they never considered it.
Re: (Score:3)
This actually seems to be an economically feasible solution to de-orbiting space junk - a light-weight 'fishnet' using the earth's geomagnetic field to degrade the velocity of captured debris - no rockets, no fuel, no guidance - simply a light-weight tethering system that 'captures' or ensnares the debris and slows it enough to degrade quickly (relative speaking - days/weeks vs years/decades) and drops the junk into an atmospheric burnup.
GO JAXA - - - wish NASA had the funding and initiative to do the same
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
lol - good one.
A few points of interest -
these 'fish' nets are metal (not nylon/rayon) and would degrade quickly in the oceans waters even IF they reached the surface
these 'fish' nets would, in all probability, disintegrate upon re-entry burnup, and not even reach the surface
even without the above, these 'fish' nets would be REALLY few and far between, not like ocean fishing trawlers
and, being metal, even without the salt ocean degradation, they would SINK, not float like plastics
And, if you want to discuss
Space dolphins are AWESOME. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
And what about spaceflies? They are already endangered by all those rogue traders flying around with spacefly collectors and using them to power their jump-drives!
Re: (Score:3)
"space dolphins becoming entangled in them and drowning"
So long and thanks for all the fishnets, you BASTARDS!!
Re: (Score:3)
Not exactly. I've been trying to dig up information on this, and as far as I can tell, the actual technology itself has nothing to do with space junk. It's just an electrodynamic space tether experiment - aka, using a charged tether to experience lorentz force as it moves through Earth's magnetic field, in order to move up and down. It does nothing to junk as it flies past. The only relation to junk is that they're thinking that they could use tether-boosted spacecraft to dock with pieces of junk, and th
Re: (Score:3)
The connection I see is that you can use it to deorbit satellites at end of life, provided the satellite was was equipped with a deployable tether. Once the tether is deployed, the deorbiting process is completely passive and automatic. This doesn't help at all with the junk that is already present however. Perhaps you could attach tethers to large existing space junk but matching orbits with them to do this would be expensive.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The eddy currents are tiny in something the size of a satellite (or even ISS). That's why these experiements use long tethers (the one tried out on Shuttle was about 40km long).
Deorbiting dead birds is a good idea for trying to prevent more clouds of junk, but there's a lot more stuff in orbit that's equally dangerous and hard to spot/rendezvous with. Even a paint fleck is hazardous and a solitary nut would be catastrophic. Something which can match orbits of known debris clouds and "sweep" them would be a
Eventually, it will be named (Score:3)
And Earth will have its wish come true: our very own debris-destroyer Gundam
Re: (Score:1)
Planetes (Score:2)
Of course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, their space junk fighting technology is called Hachimaki and is a guy with a chip on his shoulder.
Read that wrong (Score:2)
Thought for a second Japan was sending it to ISIS .
Here's an alternative solution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OMG, thank you for prompting my brain, i was just thinking about this show the other day, but couldnt remember the name. After reading the IMDB, i was chagrined to learn Tim Thomerson from Transers fame played Gene/Jean the he/she character!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My first thought was the junk sweeper patrol in UFO (1969)
Collector, or simple de-orbit tool? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA isn't clear, and mixes terminology. The summary seems to say this will act like a net to remove many little particles, but the technology is a single tether line.
As I recall, years ago there was a tether test that generated so much power (moving through the Earth's magnetic field) that it shorted out part of the test satellite. The goal of that test, if memory serves, was to use the tether as a propulsion/braking system. Run power through to go faster, drain power out for braking. Presumable a resistance coil / heater.
If this is that same technology, it isn't going to do anything for debris that isn't already captured or attached to the tether. Keeping a dead satellite from becoming space junk is good, but this won't help with the countless particles out there already.
Re: (Score:2)
It melted the cable as there were impurities in its structure, this was also a test to see how much power was generated, which was quite a bit, it was to be used as a test bed for alternative power supply, but the variances in magnetic field made it rather unpredictable as to a stable-ish supply.
Re: (Score:2)
There is some more info here: http://www.ard.jaxa.jp/eng/res... [ard.jaxa.jp]
From the statement on that site they say they want to de-orbit larger debris before it can disintegrate into smaller particles.
I think the net idea is because of confusion about the company that made the tether, Nitto Seimo, whose main business is fishing nets. It's an impressive company, developing high tech nets and going since 1910. Still relatively small with about 250 people, and a high tech manufacturing powerhouse that manages to compete
Re: (Score:2)
Found a good link for those who want to know more:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Just develop shields already... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It takes some really heavy armour plates to shield against them.
I don't think he meant shields like Roman shields.. I think he meant shields like Star Trek shields; a field emanating from a system aboard the ship.
Re: (Score:2)
"And "heavy" is the dirtiest word in space travel."
Only because we have to loft everything we have out there from the bottom of a gravity well and we have a pathological aversion to using nuclear bombs under a launcher.
If raw materials are available to build stuff in-orbit or further out then the equation changes dramatically.
My plan (Score:2)
I thought of a similar plan some years ago: make a balloon out of some very thin light material, such that when inflated, it is very much larger than the satellite. When the satellite is at end of life, inflate the balloon (takes very little gas, as we're in a vacuum.) This greatly increases the drag against the very thin outer atmosphere of the earth. (The balloon will get punctured eventually by other space junk. Without testing, I don't know if it would deflate to smaller cross-section if this occurred.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know which device would be more effective, except that my device is much more altitude sensitive than the Japanese tether, and that these people are smart enough to think of my balloon but chose to develop the tether.
Stretchy things which behave reliably in space must be difficult to come by.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't envision the balloon to be stretchy. Think weather balloon or hot air balloon.
Re: (Score:2)
Still has to sit folded up for years, then inflate reliably without puncturing, or layers sticking to each other.
Re: (Score:2)
Mars lander airbags have the same issue.
If the fabric can be rigidised during inflation then punctures don't matter (it doesn't matter if the fabric isn't stretched anyway). this is the principle behind the Bigelow hab module.
We already know of suitable materials for this job (airbags and airbag pyros). The multilayer construction necessary for a hab module isn't required for this kind of operation.
Bear in mind that balloon deceleration will require something at least 50 feet across to bring things down fro
Makes sense (Score:3)
After years of research capturing large objects in the oceans, and despite all the protests by nay-sayers, finally Japan is ready to take their technology into space and in the process help all of humanity...
What about... (Score:4, Funny)
Use of trawling nets in our oceans has led to the deaths of many marine mammals,most noticeably porpoises/dolphins.
How to they plan to avoid killing all the cute space dolphins?