Space debris, the space debris that floats around the earth, is an obstacle to space travel.
Space debris is a collection of debris formed by obolete artificial satellites and rocket debris, and it is said that there are 20,000 objects of 10cm or more.
If a vehicle or space elevator collides with space debris, it will inevitably affect space travel.
There are several ways to remove space debris.
capturing by a robot arm has been regarded as promising so far. It's realistic, but the more complicated the movement of the arm, the more expensive it is. It costs tens of billions of yen for just one machine.
Do you have any idea to remove space debris cheaper?
Under such circumstances, the conductive tether has been atracting attention.
Conductive tether is a technology that uses electricity to plunge space debris into atmosphere and burn it.
To explain in detail, an electric current is passed through the conductive ether to change the direction of debris travel. This uses the "Fleming's left-hand rule" and the "direction of the earth's magnetic field" learned in junior high school.
Apply the conductive tether to the above two illustrations.
The "force applied to the conductor" is the "direction of debris travelinfg that has changed due to the conductive tether."
The "magnetic field direction" is the "earth's magnetic field".
"Direction of current" is "direction of current flowing through the conductive tether".
In this case, the direction of travel of the conductive tether is upward, but by applying a force in he direction opposit to the orbit of the debris, the debris can be decelerated and entered the atmosphere.
Also, this conductive tether does not require a large amount of fuel, so it is not costly.
If you use a conductive tether, you will be able to travel in space more safely.
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