Aerospace engineering usually focuses on finding the next best thing, developing complex new technologies to explore the final frontier.
But sometimes it is just as innovative to recycle old ideas in new ways. That's how the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to use a 10,000-year-old technology for its latest project.
As part of their Clean Space Initiative, the ESA has designed nets modeled after a willow mesh fishing net dated back to 8300 B.C. in order to catch space debris. The proposal is just one of many ideas to be discussed as part of the ESA's e.DeOrbit symposium this May, but it has already captured the space community's attention for its elegant simplicity.
The nets are shot out of compressed air cannons in a parabolic arch at different angles and speeds to catch debris of various sizes. The ESA is not the only agency considering revitalizing simple fishing technologies for high-tech space debris retrieval missions. Japan's space agency, JAXA, has been developing a magnetic aluminum and steel space net for the same purpose.
But why is space trash such a big deal? According to the ESA, there are over 23,000 space objects orbiting Earth, which amasses to 6,300 tons of technological waste material. There have been over 200 fragmentation events in the past half-century, as well as a few serious collisions between defunct satellites and their functioning counterparts. As 60 to 70 satellites are launched every year, the debris will continue to amass and collisions will become more frequent.
Building satellites is expensive, and the services they provide to our planet for communications, military, and other purposes are indispensable in the modern world. The point is that there is limited real estate in Earth's orbit, and we can't have a bunch of garbage taking up essential space.
The project has been tested with rousing success, but scientists are still deciding what the best method is for meeting the Clean Space Initiative's goals. A robot arm may seem like an obvious choice, but it would likely be less suited to handling different rotation rates—if it grabs onto something spinning too quickly, the whole probe may be thrown into a chaotic tailspin.
Another proposed option that stays within the seafaring theme is to fire harpoons and reel interstellar garbage in using a tether, but this requires more aim than a net.
The main advantage of the net is its ability to handle a wide range of targets in a single shot, but there is still the issue of disposing its collections and whether the net will cause collisions during the collection stages. The e.DeOrbit mission begins in 2021, so the engineers still have plenty of time to address these issues in their design…but time's ticking.
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