An experimental ‘space junk’ collector, built and launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), may be in trouble, according to Japanese scientists.
It is believed that over 100 million garbage pieces, including pieces of rockets and cast-off equipment from old satellites, are orbiting the Earth. Scientists believe this space junk – generated in the past five decades as a result of than five decades of human space exploration – could pose a threat to future space exploration missions.
Japanese scientists decided to do something about that and built a space tether – made from thin wires of stainless steel/aluminum – to pull space junk from the Earth’s orbit. This electrodynamic tether was built by JAXA with the help of a fishing net company. Scientists believed this 700 meter long space tether would slow down the junk in the orbit, and bring it into a lower orbit. Scientists also believed that the clutter – after entering the Earth atmosphere -would burn up without causing any harm.
In December last year, Japanese space agency had launched a cargo ship carrying supplies for astronauts at International space station, and the tether was due to be extended out in space from that cargo ship.
According to JAXA, something has gone wrong, and it is now not sure about the successful deployment of the tether, and chances are that the junk collector might never be able to perform its important duty. The agency however said it will try to solve the problem before return of the cargo ship on Saturday.
The failure of space tether is the third big SNAFU for the Japanese space agency in the past one year. Just two weeks ago, the JAXA was forced to abort a mission aiming to use a mini-rocket to send a satellite into orbit. The mission was aborted shortly after the liftoff as spacecraft stopped sending data to ground control. In February last year, JAXA had to abandon an advanced and $270 million satellite after the agency lost contact with the satellite.
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