Swiss University designs craft for cleaning up space debris

[CaptainGazzz]

 

There are around 22,000 objects in orbit that are big enough for officials on the ground to track and countless more smaller ones that could do damage to human-carrying spaceships and valuable satellites.

 

It is estimated that there are as many as 370,000 pieces of space junk floating in Earth's orbit, traveling at speeds of up to 22,000 mph.

 

CleanSpace One's mission is to grab hold of a piece of space junk - in this case an out-of-commission Swiss nanosatellite measuring 10cm on each side - and thrust it into the atmosphere, where it will burn up.

 

 

 

 

 

I find this project a very important one, not many people are aware of the problem that space debris can cause. We have already polluted the earth, now we are also polluting space. This is a danger to our means of communications on earth and is also a danger to the astronauts in space. The ISS sometimes has to maneuver a little bit to avoid possible collisions.

 

Even though many pieces of space debris eventually hit the atmosphere and dissolve, some pieces stay in orbit.

 

In 2009 an active satellite, Iridium 33, collided with the inactive Kosmos-2251 satellite. Both satellites got destroyed and the collision resulted in a few thousand pieces of debris that can easily destroy multiple other satellites. As you can see this could result in a domino effect.

 

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2429933/CleanSpace-One-Janitor-satellite-sweep-370-000-pieces-junk-orbiting-planet.html#v-2686021943001(old)

http://tweakers.net/nieuws/104090/clean-space-one-project-ruimt-ruimte-op-met-conisch-net.html (new but in Dutch)

https://youtu.be/pclqbhRKkdM(video of project)

http://www.alexras.info/code/orbital_objects/ (3D representation of large debris in orbit)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision (information about collision)

http://www.wired.com/2009/02/spacestuff/ (just for fun)

[Aytex]

pics?

[CaptainGazzz]

pics?

 

Could only find one of the new stage of the project, if you want to know more you should check out the Youtube link

[Jerakl]

pics?

pics of the debris?

 

google it.

[NiftyMist]

Why not focus on all the trash we don't know what to do with here on Earth first?  I'm all for space debris clean up, I just feel that the trash on Earth should be a higher priority.  

[Delusional Phil]

Why not focus on all the trash we don't know what to do with here on Earth first?  I'm all for space debris clean up, I just feel that the trash on Earth should be a higher priority.  

I think there a project that is being develope by a 17 year old , his design looks promising , we'll see how it goes in a few years ... His plan is to celan the oceans I believe . For trash on land , there's this one cool project that they use bacteria to decompose Plastic into organic matter . 

[gastew15]

Relevant

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

[Serin]

Looks Vorlon. I dig.
Certainly extremely important to our future in space and indeed our future down here.

[Randomacts]

So basically this.

 

 

edit: I wasn't the first one to think of this show hah

[Trik'Stari]

Next thing you know:

[Takata]

Eh? The video suggests we need to consume a whole satellite (and therefore, launch vehicle) just to de-orbit one piece of orbiting debris. >.>

This is why you shouldn't be allowed to leave any junk in orbit. >.>

[Notional]

So basically this.

 

 

edit: I wasn't the first one to think of this show hah

 

Dammit beat me to it. But year planets is a really good anime. The trailer shows how a screw brings down a spacecraft. Pretty awesome, and very scary: