NASA’s solar-powered ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator maneuvers into position next to an object and captures the debris with a lightweight net.The spacecraft should be functional by 2018. It grabs space junk and hurtles it through Earth’s atmosphere, where the debris will eventually burn up. CleanSpace One is a massive satellite with a giant spidery hand.Here are a few more ideas for making space cleaner and safer: The ship will rocket around Earth, sucking in debris and transforming it into fuel.
How does it work? At a high enough temperature, just about anything can be transformed into plasma that can be used as a propellant. They want to build a self-sustaining spacecraft that collects debris and converts it into fuel that, in turn, powers the craft as it cleans up more debris. The space debris is mostly small - think marble-sized - but even tiny pieces can cause major damage to satellites and spacecraft when they’re hurtling through space at 17,500 miles per hour.įortunately, a team of engineers from China has come up with one cool way to clean up the skies. In reality, there are millions of pieces of man-made junk orbiting Earth. It’s easy to think of the space around our planet as an empty vacuum, devoid of much other than a few satellites and the International Space Station.
0 kommentar(er)
