Finally! A Trash Collector For Space Junk!

It's time to talk trash! Space trash, to be specific. Trash collection has never really seemed like an enviable job to most of us.
But, what if you were collecting trash from outer space? That sounds
like what could be the coolest job in the galaxy.

Tethers Unlimited, (TUI) a 15-employee company based in Bothell,
Washington, aims to begin cleaning up space junk later this year by
launching their "Terminator Tether" into space aboard AeroCube-5 satellites. Once the tether attaches itself to an object – an obsolete
satellite, for example, it then unfurls a long fiber or wire. The tether collects electrons as it drags through the Earth's magnetic field at orbital speed, creating a voltage called "Motional EMF." The resulting drag from the electrons collected on the tether can then deorbit the satellite, causing it to fall back to earth. According to TUI's website:

"This module uses active
electron emission technologies to greatly increase the electrodynamic
forces, enabling it to deorbit most LEO spacecraft with in a period of
several months. The Terminator Tether modules will typically mass less
than 2% of the host spacecraft's dry mass."

Rob Hoyt, a physicist and inventor, came up with the
idea seventeen years ago, while working out of his house. There are
currently over 21,000 pieces of space junk larger than a grapefruit
circling the Earth, threatening any manned or unmanned spacecraft up
there. Hoyt proposes that TUI's method of satellite
removal would be a fraction of the cost of using rocket fuel to deorbit
the object.

In 2007, the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
adopted a set of space debris mitigation guidelines, which included a
25-year deorbit requirement for satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Hence the need for Hoyt's company.

Tethers Unlimited is well on their way to astronomic success, if their
concepts prove viable. Hoyt expressed his optimism by telling the Puget Sound Business Journal:

"There's a
lot of cool stuff going on here in the state, and we're rebuilding the
space industry here. We're getting more of the new space companies and
organizations taking hold here. We could still use better support from
the state."

Tethers Unlimited is also working to develop a
rocket engine that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and
oxygen, which it would then use as fuel. That's right – a rocket that runs on water.

Another very impressive technology from TUI is what they call a "Trusselator" device. It's a technology that uses additive manufacturing
techniques (similar to 3D printing) to enable on-orbit fabrication of high-performance
carbon-fiber truss structures. Per TUI's website:

"The Trusselator technology is a key
element of TUI's "SpiderFab" architecture, which will enable on-orbit
fabrication of huge antennas, high-power solar arrays, and other systems
not possible with current technologies."

TUI's "SpiderFab"

The ability to build structures in space on-the-fly has implications for dreams of colonization. Net structures being built by the Trusselator could be used as supply depots for missions to Mars. While the concept may sound like something out of Star Wars, we're still far, far way from having the ability to complete something as ambitious as the Death Star.

Sources: bizjournals.com, eoportal.org

Images: budgetdumpster.com, tethers.com