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Space debris is a constant threat to astronauts, satellites, space stations, and billionaire tourists. Gonzalo Sánchez and his colleagues of the E.T. PACK Project have come up with an approach that can be used to deorbit satellites in the future.
The ESA's Space Debris Office estimates that there are over 34,000 pieces of large debris in Low Earth Orbit consisting of dead satellites, boosters, dropped wrenches, paint flecks and all manner of other assorted junk. At some difficult to predict point in the future it is possible, as the amount of this debris increases, for a cascading effect known as the Kessler syndrome to occur making Low Earth Orbit extremely dangerous and effectively closing it off for use.
The new satellite deorbiting technology is intended to help avoid this outcome and is called the Electrodynamic Tether technology for Passive Consumable-less deorbit Kit (E.T.PACK) system.
The key to this system is a low work-function tether that consists of a strip of aluminum tape coated with a special material that allows it to emit electrons when illuminated by the Sun. This causes the tether to become attracted to Earth's magnetic field via the Lorentz Force, effectively lowering its altitude until it burns up in Earth's atmosphere.
The tether itself would measure 2 cm (0.8 in) in width, 50 microns in thickness, and several kilometers in length. During the launch of the satellite, the tether would be rolled up in a reel and only deployed once the satellite was in orbit. In this way, future satellites would be able to self-destruct and not become part of the space debris problem.
The project, which is funded by the European Commissions is expected to conclude in three years culminating in a prototype for a demonstration flight. The technology has captured the interest of the ESA and various space industries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @01:37PM (7 children)
I get how it works once the tether is stretched out -- but how does it get from a roll (of aluminum / aluminized tape) into a linear configuration? If I unrolled some ribbon in orbit I think it would quickly be one big tangle. Unless the material has almost no bending stiffness (very limp), it will have some curvature when it comes off the roll.
(Score: 2, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday June 16 2019, @02:26PM (4 children)
It's made of Aluminum, right? Aluminum, as everyone knows, is attracted (not sexually) to a Magnet. And, it's also attracted to Gravity. Look at story. They say Gravity will make it very "taut." Polite way to say, stiff. So don't worry about the stiffness!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @03:47PM
Curses ... Foiled Again!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 16 2019, @05:59PM (2 children)
Aluminum, as everyone knows, is attracted... to a Magnet.
It is, eh? I think that's just another one of *your*, er... fibs, yeah, that's it...
Or to put it another way, Aluminum is about as magnetic as *you* are. Of course I mean that in the nicest possible way, right?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 17 2019, @01:01AM (1 child)
Obviously I was being sarcastic. Although, not as sarcastic as you might think.
Look at Summary. Did you even look at Summary? They say, tether is "attracted to Earth's magnetic field." Another way of saying, Earth is a HUGE MAGNET. And, it attracts Tether (Aluminum). Sounds like a lie, right? Youre on a Fake News Sight. They lie about Magnet. They lie about Vaccine. They lie about Microsoft. And, they lie about me!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @01:23AM
Where is the Woosh mod?
(Score: 5, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday June 16 2019, @03:33PM
You are right to question this. Many electrodynamic tether experiments have ended up in a tangled failure. e.g. JAXA's Kounotori Integrated Tether Experiments (KITE) I assume that solving this issue is one of the technical goals of this project.
If they can figure it out we'll be able to move around LEO for the price of sunlight and time. That has applications far beyond just space junk removal. E.g. if you were patient you could use it to stretch an elliptical orbit to throw a cubesat out to a lagrange point and into the IPN [wikipedia.org] Getting out there takes a bunch of delta-v, but once you are there it only takes relatively tiny amounts of thrust to move very far from Earth.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday June 17 2019, @01:04PM
I'm just guessing here, but since they're claiming that it'll generate a negative charge on it's surface form sunlight, those electrons will repel each other and push the tape into a linear shape (as you said, only if it's very limp).