Japan Set to Go Fishing for Space Junk

Written By: guyjin on February 3, 2011 No Comment

SpaceJunk

The Daily Mail reports that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is working with a fishing net company to develop a magnetic metal net which will be used to reduce the vast amount of space junk orbiting the globe.

According to the story, some estimate that there are as many as 370,000 pieces of space junk floating around in our orbit, and collisions with satellites could cause great damage, leading to disruptions in communications and other costly problems. Thus this effort to try and clean up some of the debris.

The Japanese space agency are looking to build a thin metal net which will be several miles wide, and which will be charged with electricity once in orbit, to magnetize it and attract the space junk that comes into its path. The net will then be expected to re-enter the atmosphere together with the junk, with both to burn up on re-entry.