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+--- Thread: Article Researchers are working on a tractor beam system for space debris (/thread-14201.html)
Researchers are working on a tractor beam system for space debris - C C - Jun 6, 2023
https://www.universetoday.com/161783/researchers-are-working-on-a-tractor-beam-system-for-space/
EXCERPTS: The problem with space debris is that it will only get worse. Collisions between objects produce even more objects in a cascading effect. Even if we stopped launching things into orbit, the number of objects will keep growing.
[...] Schaub’s team can find an answer to space debris, it’ll start in their little vacuum chamber. They’re developing electron beams that can either be attractive or repulsive and could hopefully be used to change the trajectory of individual pieces of space debris. The small chamber is where they perform tests.
“We’re creating an attractive or repulsive electrostatic force,” said Schaub, chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “It’s similar to the tractor beam you see in Star Trek, although not nearly as powerful.”
Their potential solution could bypass one of the huge risks in mitigating the space debris problem: touching it. Contacting a piece of fast-moving, tumbling space debris could change its trajectory unintentionally, making the problem even worse. That could add to the cascading collision problem.
“Touching things in space is very dangerous. Objects are moving very fast and often unpredictably,” said Kaylee Champion, a doctoral student working with Schaub. “This could open up a lot of safer avenues for servicing spacecraft.”
Eventually, if their work bears fruit, the team envisions a fleet of small spacecraft orbiting Earth. The spacecraft would rendezvous with things like defunct satellites and then use either attractive or repulsive electron beams to alter its trajectory. It’s all based on the Coulombe force... (MORE - missing details
https://youtu.be/htrRanW65fE