Japan is launching a “space junk collector” to the International Space Station (ISS) Friday that’s intended to remove harmful debris from orbit.
Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will use the device to catch and drag space junk out of orbit around Earth, including cast-off equipment from old satellites and pieces of rocket.
JAXA’s device is an electrodynamic tether made from thin wires of stainless steel and aluminium. The electricity generated by the tether as it swings through the Earth’s magnetic field will slow down space junk, pulling it into a lower orbit where it will ultimately burn up.
“The tether uses our fishnet plaiting technology, but it was really tough to intertwine the very thin materials,” Katsuya Suzuki, an engineer who helped develop the tether, told reporters. “The length of the tether this time is 700 metre (2,300 feet), but eventually it’s going to need to be 5,000 to 10,000 metre-long to slow down the targeted space junk.”
More than 50 years of human space exploration since the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite in 1957 has produced an extremely hazardous belt of orbiting debris. Scientists estimate that there are currently more than 100 million pieces of debris in orbit and that they pose a growing threat to future space exploration. Satellites and the ISS itself have logged more than 100 minor collisions with space debris every year.
Even the U.S. Department of Defense is worrying that debris could make it very hard to operate military satellites.
Japan’s launch to the ISS isn’t only carrying the tether, but also batteries, food and drinking water for the astronauts living there. The launch will resupply the space station after a Russian resupply craft caught on fire earlier this month.
The U.S. paid for 84 percent of the costs associated with building the ISS while Japan’s contribution was smaller and largely limited to technical support. The last American Space Shuttle to the ISS launched five years ago in July, but NASA still can’t put men into space without Russian cooperation due to President Barack Obama’s cuts to the agency’s exploration and spaceflight capability. Russia has repeatedly threatened to block America access to the $150 billion ISS in response to U.S. sanctions.
Send tips to andrew@
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.