British-led mission to collect space junk – using a net and harpoon
A BRITISH-LED mission demonstrating how to salvage potentially dangerous junk orbiting the Earth was set to be launched last night, less than a day after a Chinese space station broke up over the Pacific.
The RemoveDEBRIS satellite, to be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS), will carry a net for capturing space litter and a harpoon that can be used to spear and haul in larger objects.
A Space X Falcon 9 rocket is being used to deliver the box-like craft to the ISS from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Blast-off was due to take place last night.
The fiery demise of the Chinese space lab Tiangong-1 was a timely reminder of the growing hazard of space junk.
The defunct 10.4 metre long spacecraft, weighing 8.5 tonnes, re-entered the atmosphere at 01.15 BST yesterday.
According to official reports, it mostly broke up harmlessly above the South Pacific, but there is uncertainty about its precise fate.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US, tweeted that it appeared to have come down north-west of Tahiti.
Nasa tracks more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a cricket ball orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500mph. There are an estimated 500,000 pieces the size of a marble or larger.
Although the chances are low, a collision between even a small object and a spacecraft carrying valuable equipment or a human crew would be disastrous.