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Researchers Want a Robotic Space Cleaner to Digest Debris and Turn it into Fuel

The idea is for the debris to take the place of gases like argon and xenon.
Debris in space. Image: ESA

Space junk poses a massive threat to all the satellites and spacecrafts currently orbiting space. Proposals to eliminate debris include everything from using electricity's power to slow down its movements to modelling possibilities of clearing it with game theory.

Now in an Arxiv paper reported on by the MIT Technology Review, researchers from China have proposed a design for a space engine that can gobble up space junk and turn it into the rocket's propellant. In a nutshell, they want to build a self-powered debris-sucking robotic space vacuum.

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"Space robotic cleaner is adopted to capture the targeted debris and to transfer them into the engine," they write in their paper.

While there are many ideas out there for clearing space debris, the researchers of this paper argue that one of the core issues is how to maintain momentum for all these variant space debris-cleaning designs. "Huge fuel consumption is the biggest inhibitor to space cleaners' lifetime and makes the mission cost increase sharply," they write.

A concept design for a debris engine. Image: Tsinghua University, Beijing.

In order to jump that hurdle, the researchers want their future rocket engine to suck up space debris, then turn it into fuel. To do this, they want their cleaner to catch large pieces of debris and turn them into dust using an onboard ball mill, a type of grinder. The engine then generates a high enough temperature in order to turn the small particles of space debris into a plasma that propels the spacecraft onward. The idea is for the debris to take the place of gases like argon and xenon, according to the researchers.

Hypothetically speaking, the idea of a self-propelled debris-sucking robotic cleaner is awesome. But in practice, matters are more complex. While the researchers suggest powering the cleaner with either nuclear or solar power, it's not clear whether these two power sources will suffice. Additionally, the MIT Technology Review asks whether it's really a good idea for a nuclear-powered spacecraft to be cruising Earth's orbit like that.

While the researchers are yet to provide real hard data on how exactly they'd streamline the logistics of their robotic space cleaner, the concept is pretty cool. Who wouldn't want a self-powered robot vacuum to be sucking up space junk and leaving space clear of dangerous debris?