It is slightly smaller than a bin and has about the same purpose: to collect waste, but in space. The device is called Elsa-d and will depart from the Russian Baikonur launch site next week. Elsa-d was built by Astroscale, a trading company headquartered in Tokyo with offices in several countries, including the United Kingdom. Astroscale was established seven years ago and offers governments and (telecommunications companies) cleaning waste from their space activities (see window).
Elsa is an abbreviation for Astroscale’s End of Life Services. The letter “d” indicates the explanation. The device shown in the photo consists of two parts. The large piece, with solar panels, is called the service. The smaller block is its client, which has the size of the moving box. These two are attached to each other. But when the Elsa-d is brought into orbit with a Soyuz rocket, he will release his client, a few meters away, and catch him again.
Unexpected Strangers
The Elsa-d uses a magnetic arm for this purpose, and the first test must prove that it works in space. In a second experiment, it becomes more complicated. Space debris not only hangs a few feet away and remains silent, but flies through space on all its axes. In the second trial, the customer will be released again, but with one click, causing unexpected accidents. In addition, it is hundreds of meters from service.
Elsa-d now has to approach his client, measure what he is doing and start making exactly the same twisting movements so that she can grab the client again with his magnetic arm. In a third experiment, the client will be many miles away from the server, and Elsa-d must prove that he can locate and seize a specific piece of space debris orbiting the earth.
The last part of the mission is waste disposal: the servant and his client go down to earth and are released into the atmosphere. Due to its high speed, the air resistance causes heating and the garbage and the space debris are burned. If you want an impression of the whole Japanese mission, you can see the animation below.
Fatal collisions with space debris
The mission, which begins next week, should primarily demonstrate that the technology developed to remove space debris is working. Astroscale is already taking the next step. The Japanese aerospace agency Jaxa was awarded a contract last month. Like fellow United States (NASA) and Europe (ESA) organizations, JAXA understands that the immediate vicinity of the Earth must be cleared to avoid fatal collisions by cutting off space debris.
In the first project, Jaxa wants to remove the last steps of a missile launched earlier. The giant, which weighs several tons on Earth, floats in an orbit around the planet. Picking it up and tidying it up would be a whole different story than the Elsa-d mission. However, the rocket stage is several times larger than that of the customer Elsa-d will play, it has no iron and cannot be captured with a magnetic arm.
In this case, it is likely that a robotic arm could be developed that could accommodate the obsolete portion of the missile. But that’s for later. In the first part of this Japanese mission, Astroscale will launch a satellite to examine this piece of space debris at a distance of a few meters up close and map the immediate vicinity. This should be done next year, after which Jaxa can think of a second phase on how to bring the Colossians into the atmosphere for cleansing.
Micro gravity
Robotarms is the technology that ClearSpace also chooses. This young Swiss company originated from the Technical University of Lausanne three years ago and recently won the first contract offered in the new European Space Agency (ESA) debris removal program.
In this first mission, ClearSpace will launch a four-armed robot from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana in 2025. It should use it to repair part of a rocket launched in 2013. The part that now revolves around the earth is very large. ; You will weigh more than a hundred pounds on earth.
In the microgravity of the near space, almost nothing of this weight is left. It sounds useful, but it makes the recovery of space debris very complicated: a little wrong and a piece of debris can disappear from sight at any moment. Or worse, it can be damaged and broken into pieces, which can contribute to the problem of space debris. Also in this case, the machine for removing debris, simply called ClearSpace-1, must first find out exactly where the piece of space debris is and how it rotates, in order to catch the giant on a track.
Swiss craftsmanship
This is a € 100 million project, and it was surprising that Esa awarded him a young Swiss company. Switzerland is a member of the European Space Agency, but it is not a major country in space. Why start ClearSpace Swiss? “Why not?” Founder Luc Piquet, said recently in an interview with Innovaud, the Swiss innovation agency. ‘Our country has excellent universities and engineers and a long tradition of craftsmanship. In Switzerland, people are associated with high quality and reliability, and this also applies to aviation technology. ”
According to the Japanese Nobuo Okada, founder of Astroscale, it is about preparing satellites before departure at the end of their working life. His company has developed a round plate with optical and magnetic properties that is now installed on the customer. This enables Elsa-d to find and magnetically connect the customer. This panel can be installed on any future satellite. Scrapers will help.
What a mess
Space is cool and empty, but near the earth is a landfill. More than half a million pieces of space debris orbit the earth. A small part of it has a natural origin: meteorites that orbit the sun like the earth and approach the planet. But most of it is human waste, ranging from small pieces to whole rocket pieces that revolve around the earth.
This space debris is not only a disgrace but also a great danger. The pieces revolve around the earth at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour. At these velocities, even the smallest particles of debris can cause a devastating collision with satellites orbiting the earth or, for example, with a space station.
Space organizations ESA (Europe) and NASA (US) estimate that such a collision, with the current amount of space debris, occurs once every ten years. It does not look like much, given the large amount of debris, but it is a lot of space.
Waste cloud
Known collisions were included in 1996 when a French satellite was damaged by the remains of a rocket – also French – launched ten years earlier, and in 2009 when a retired Russian satellite collided with a commercial American satellite, which not just meant the end of life. the latter, but a bonus on it, she added about two thousand pieces of debris to the trash.
Therefore, the chances of colliding with existing space debris are really high. Chaos continues to grow as humanity brings more and more equipment into space. In the first decade of this century, an average of 72 satellites were put into orbit each year. There are now more than 125 a year, ESA said, and the number will increase dramatically as new and advanced versions of the Internet are built.
Indeed, the International Space Station and larger satellites sometimes have to change course in order not to clutter. But not all space satellites have the engines to do this.
Space organizations, in consultation around the world, have developed guidelines to reduce the remnants of launches and bring satellites that are no longer in orbit where they are not in their path. These guidelines are not enough. Some debris needs to be removed to reduce the risk. If more dangerous items are selected, the number you have to store will be limited. The technology for this is now being developed. But these are very expensive missions.
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