Meet OSCaR: Tiny Cubesat Would Clean Up Space Junk

[Judi Lynn]

By Mike Wall 12 hours ago Tech

The little spacecraft would clean up debris on the cheap

. . .

A little spacecraft could soon make a big contribution in the fight against space junk.

Researchers are developing a cleanup cubesat called OSCaR (Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal), which would hunt down and de-orbit debris on the cheap using onboard nets and tethers. And OSCaR would do so relatively autonomously, with little guidance from controllers on the ground.

"We tell OSCaR what to do and then we have to trust it," project leader Kurt Anderson, a professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, said in a statement.

"That’s why this problem actually gets very hard, because we are doing things that a big, expensive satellite would do, but in a cubesat platform," Anderson added.



An artist's illustration of the OSCaR cubesat, which would clean up space junk in Earth orbit.

(Image: © Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

More:
https://www.space.com/space-junk-cleanup-cubesat-oscar.html?utm_source=notification

[donkeypoofed]

1. Hi Wally !! That's Wally !!

Such a cute movie !

Where's my floaty chair ?

[Kurt V.]

2. my university is working on this too. There's a lot of gold out there!