Tech
Japan’s attempt to rid orbit of ‘space junk’ fails
A mission by Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to “pull” debris out of orbit with an electromagnetic cable which will direct it towards Earth where it would burn up on reentry into the atmosphere has failed.
JAXA announced that its experimental method failed because; “We believe the tether did not get released,” leading researcher Koichi Inoue revealed. “It is certainly disappointing that we ended the mission without completing one of the main objectives.”
Read also: New cars to have car-2-car technology by 2023
There’s a lot of space junk orbiting Earth and it could make future space travel impossible. Unfortunately, one of the few latest projects focused on cleaning it up just failed.
Over 100 million pieces of space junk orbit Earth, 29,000 of which are big enough to cause major damage. Bits of retired satellites, metal expelled from rockets, and abandoned equipment make up this ominous cloud of debris.
The danger is already very real. In 2009, American and Russian satellites collided and created thousands of large pieces of rubble. The International Space Station (ISS) had to pull an avoidance maneuver around that debris two years later.
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