Electrodynamic Tether (Space junk cleaner)

[Esper]

This is a nifty thing I read about I wanted to share. [here click me for reading article in originality]

It would use a tether with an electromagnetic current redirect the trajectory of space debris so that it will burn up in the atmosphere instead of posing a risk to satellites and spacecraft.

 

[Lucario]

Seems quite.... Kerbal.

 

[Nihilego]

i'd prefer it stays up there than gets pulled down to earth really

 

[Esper]

i'd prefer it stays up there than gets pulled down to earth really

But most of the stuff up there is tiny and would burn up. I don't think they're planning to pull down anything large.

 

[gimmepie]

This seems like a pretty neat idea since we desperately need to get rid of the junk around our planet. We're basically making rings and it poses a huge threat to anything important we put into orbit - including people.

 

[gehringgame]

Yeah, space debris is no bueno. We're not in eminent danger at the moment, but if things continue on their current trajectory it's not hard to imagine a future where the Kessler syndrome is a very real possibility. Any novel ideas for space junk removal (like this one!) are welcome in my book.

 

[Legobricks]

Kessler Syndrome is at least a lot less bad than we initially thought it would be in the early days, or so I've read. I think one of the other things we could do is launch craft with big plates of aerogel to absorb the smaller untrackable pieces of debris. This has been demonstrated on a small scale by Stardust where aerogel was used to collect samples. Actual collection isn't necessarily the objective of space junk removal (you could use lasers to destroy it, for instance, but that would require putting nuclear reactors in space to power them and that's a political no-go), but the extremely low density of aerogels may make unfolding solar-sail-sized collectors feasible and affordable.