Enough about the Missileer cheaters! It’s just sad to see the organizations I once worked for go downhill so badly. On to the story…
There’s always someone out there who has a great-sounding idea for how to take care of the “debris-in-space” problem. Japan is no exception. This Geek.com article talks about Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) idea for collecting junk.
JAXA want to deploy a satellite with a magnetic net to scoop up the debris. My guess is this Japanese “space trawler” will be primarily used for Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) operations. I suppose there’s no reason they couldn’t try to clean up all orbits, though. The only things that may slow that idea is the area covered, and power.
Like the other ideas for cleaning up space, if JAXA succeed, they may have a money-maker. There should be a fee for services rendered. They plan to have it ready for launch by 2019.
One thing to remember for those peaceniks out there: the space trawler could be weaponized. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to have the space trawler target active satellites.
The Mad Spaceball 