Believe it or not there’s a lot of junk in space, be it components from broken up satellites or fragments of broken machinery. There’s a lot of it and since it travels at speeds of up to 15,000 miles-per-hour up there it can pose a serious risk to astronauts and other satellites, somewhat like the scenario that was depicted in the movie Gravity. Switzerland’s EPFL Center for Space Engineering has an idea to clean up space and it involves “Pac-Man” satellites.
This won’t be an easy operation since it involves trapping debris with a conical net. First the Pac-Man satellites will remove the tiny SwissCubes, 4×4-inch satellites. that the EPFL launched a while back.
Since it would be difficult to locate these small satellites EPFL researchers are developing a HDR camera and image processing system which can identify bright reflections off of SwissCubes to locate their position and ready the net to capture them.
The Pac-Man satellite will have a cone shaped net which will unfold when need and then close up when it’s not. Once the small satellites are captured the Pac-Man satellite will step out of orbit and burn everything up as it hurtles down towards the earth.
EPFL is past the prototype stage and aims to launch the mission by 2018 which could serve as a launch pad for future missions to effectively get rid of space debris.