RemoveDEBRIS’s Harpoon captures space debris

RemoveDEBRIS’s Harpoon Experiment successfully captured space debris. The 10x10 cm target was deployed from the RemoveDEBRIS satellite at a 1.5 metre distance. The harpoon was fired at 20 metres/sec to penetrate the target and demonstrate the ability of a harpoon to capture debris.

Credit:
Airbus/Surrey Space Centre
#RemoveDEBRIS #SpaceDebris

[StarGazerJim]

I don’t like the harpoon idea. Seems likely that in using it, you could break off chunks of the target in the process and create even more debris.

[gaigewycuff]

I love imagining pitching this idea to NASA. "Yes we'd like to put a vehicle with a harpoon designed to puncture space craft on the iss"

[flungingpictures]

Question:
When the harpoon hits its target, there would be debris, small bit of debris, the size of "paint chips", no?

[Dragon-Slayr]

Wasn't the supposed to eat the Y horizontal tongue on the Z as the Y horizontally from the top is a harpoon and the bottom is the roof cover so after the walk they walked away with half a sausage

[nathanowen]

After spending all the ∆v required to rendezvous with an object, why would you risk using a harpoon to catch it...

[mikeb]

So how do we do this when that debris is spinning on 2 axis.

[ArchFundy]

Is it a one time use? Now that it has a piece of debris stuck on the end, it couldn't be reused until it is removed. An electromagnet would work for some things and could be cleaned by simply turning off the power. Even if most of the debris wasn't magnetic, it wouldn't take much attraction to pull it into the payload area for containment.

[dylansemrau]

Like pretty much everyone else here is saying, this seems like a bad idea. You’d literally just create more debris in the process. Use either a net or that really strong mermaid man magnet from spongebob.

[Sir_Uncle_Ned]

Nice. Shame about all the microscopic particles left in orbit now, but, to be fair, they will deorbit quicker than larger debris

[tmdpc]

As others have said a harpoon will just create smaller debris. How about an electromagnet?

[erickf]

Will this work to recover that POS red car with a dummy that is out there somewhere ?

[Djdarki]

What is happening here, why we have to shoot to capture aomething in space . Is there any help ?!!

[LokiTheAsgard]

I dont know how big the craft was but the launch of the grapple was enough to make it start spinning

[pault]

A solar powered slingshot or snooker cue for small objects, tap them back to earth, might deorbit in less than a year even at 0.1 m/s?

[monkeyboy]

Does this weapon violate any sort of international law?

[Shadowkey]

Nice!




Now do it with something that ISNT already tethered to the satellite.

[custossecretus]

Great, so we now have proof of concept. But, how reusable is this going to be? How many harpoons can this carry and does it have to suicide into the Earths atmosphere to get rid of the debris? How many of these would it take to launch into space to clear the debris? I would have thought robot arms with different attachments would be just as good, you could capture, store or even alter the course of debris to fall and hopefully burn up in the atmosphere over the Pacific. Much more reusable than harpooning.

[IbnBahtuta]

I was expecting some kind of gripper being used to secure the debris. This looks like it was invented by the military, it has a kind of gung-ho look to it.

[deralictv.]

We now know what the space force is going to be doing. Harpooning space junk...

[pnaltd.]

why use a harpoon and catch 1 piece at a time? There are reportedly 16-20, 000 pieces of space they design some kind of a net deployed to operate like a spiders web and catch multiple items, empty the net and cast again?