Russian experts have proposed a new way to clean the near-Earth space from space debris. Information about the project called "Capture of rotating space debris with a harpoon" in the collection of abstracts of the Royal Readings 2020.
Space debris poses a serious threat to operational satellites, as well as manned and cargo vehicles. The most dangerous objects are non-functioning spacecraft and upper stages of rockets.
Scientists from Samara State Technical University and Samara National Research University propose to capture large objects of space debris using a special harpoon and then take them to the upper atmosphere on a cable.
The idea is to use the harpoon not only to grab an object, but also to reduce its angular rotation speed. This is necessary to prevent the cable from wrapping around an object, which could result in towing failure.
“Towing will be safe if both the tensioned rope and the object oscillate relative to stable equilibrium positions. In this regard, a method has been proposed for capturing a rotating object, which makes it possible to change its initial angular velocity due to the impact of the harpoon so that during the unwinding of the cable it will move to the position required for safe towing,” the project notes.
It must be emphasized that the kinetic energy of the rotational motion of the object is reduced solely due to the impact of the harpoon. Therefore, this method is not suitable for capturing rapidly rotating objects.
Source: 3dnews.ru