Luo Sheng was attracted by a message when he browsed the global information of the day, and when he clicked on the content, he couldn't help but smile in surprise, and said to himself: "Yo, Zheng Tao's execution is very powerful, I like such subordinates." ”

In fact, Luo Sheng can access it through Star Arrow International's internal information system, and he has the highest global authority, but he did not do so, but directly looked at the news report.

The news has just come out, the University of Surrey Space Center in the United Kingdom announced that it has officially reached an in-depth cooperation with Star Arrow International, which has invested 22 million euros to support the new space junk trap Remove-Debris led by the University of Surrey Space Center will be sent to low Earth orbit for space testing this year.

According to the plan, after the introduction of Star Arrow International, a new partner, the space junk trap project will take Star Arrow International's recyclable rocket to the "Tiangong-2" space station in April this year, and then be ejected to the designated space coordinates for testing.

As human space exploration activities become more frequent and hot, the debris in space orbit has become a problem that has to be faced, and the problem will become more and more prominent with the more frequent space activities of human beings.

It can be seen that for those who are interested in making a big impact in the aerospace field, providing solutions for dealing with orbital space junk is an area with broad prospects for commercial applications in the future.

The sky ladder project is extremely vast, and the "Pioneer 1" in the high-altitude orbit is not a big problem, but the "Pioneer 2" in the low-altitude orbit is different, and the size is too large, which directly or indirectly leads to more prominent space security problems.

Space junk had to be disposed of.

At present, there are about 500,000 pieces of space debris floating near the Earth, of which more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters in diameter are located in orbit around the Earth.

Much of this debris comes from abandoned satellites and rockets launched over the past seven decades.

Since the launch of the first artificial satellite, countries have launched more than 5,000 satellites, rockets, probes and other spacecraft, and at the same time formed more than 3,000 tons of space junk flying around the earth's orbit.

Moreover, this number is increasing at a rate of 5% every year, and it is clear that in the era of the megatrend of human beings going to deep space, who can provide solutions to these new problems will inevitably bring rich rewards, so more and more people are interested in dealing with the problem of space junk.

Over the past few decades, a number of options have taken shape to clean up space junk, including the Remove-Debris Space Junk Trap.

The project was established as early as 2013 and was funded by the Assault Alliance Committee, with the aim of removing space junk generated by human beings in space activities for more than half a century and creating a safe space environment for active space vehicles.

However, the progress of this project is not fast, or even very slow, and there were two twists and turns in the middle of the project, and it was almost stranded indefinitely.

The reason is just one word: money!

Two words: no money!

Europe is really out of money, and after the conflict between the eurozone and Britain, the future of this project has become worrying.

Not to mention that the British Space Agency is going to increase the budget for space exploration, and the European people whose welfare benefits are affected are angrily complaining that this is a waste of money and doing meaningless things, and they are also demanding to cut spending.

With an annual budget of less than £300 million for the British Space Agency, the Remove-Debris project has to seek more international cooperation if it wants to move forward steadily.

Over the years, in addition to the Surrey Space Centre, the follow-up project has been involved in cooperation with scientific research institutions such as Stellenbosch University in South Africa, as well as 10 aerospace companies such as Airbus.

Now a new partner, Star Arrow International, has been introduced.

However, Star Arrow International is not a stupid person who only gives money, but to deeply participate in it and have the right to speak, like the so-called international space cooperation more than 20 years ago to make the Chinese people pay, but not to let the Chinese people contact the core technology of the matter does not exist in contemporary times.

At least in Luo Sheng, it is absolutely impossible to exist here.

Times have changed.

Now it is the Surrey Space Center that has taken the initiative to come to Star Arrow International to seek it, not only because of lack of money, but also because Star Arrow International's "ladder project" is a potential super customer for countless astronauts in the future.

In fact, the Remove-Debris space junk trap was built as early as two years ago, but due to lack of funding, it was not sent to space for testing, there was no real experimental data analysis, and it was completely based on brain-supplemented theoretical calculations, and the next step of research could not be progressed.

The instrument has a mass of about 100 kilograms, and is a cube of about 0.75 meters square from the outside, in addition to placing two small satellites for simulating garbage, it is also equipped with a robotic arm for garbage collection, towing sails and equipment similar to harpoons and fishing nets, with external camera arrays, lidar and other sensors, you can verify the feasibility of garbage collection in space.

The cooperation between Star Arrow International and the Surrey Space Center also has a clear plan, but there is no detailed information in the news report in this regard, and both sides have not disclosed more details for the time being, but it will definitely be announced in the future.

Luo Sheng closed the news page and asked, "Cortana, what are the plans for Remove-Debris?" ”

Cortana responded: "After launching Remove-Debris into the intended orbit, there will be 4 test missions. In the first test, Remove-Debris will release a small satellite and fly it to a distance of about seven meters before launching a capture net. ”

"The second test will release a second small satellite, which will target it to test lidar and navigation systems."

"In the third test, Remove-Debris unfolded a 5.15-meter-long robotic arm and fired a harpoon at a target of 0.01 meters at the top of the robotic arm."

"In the fourth test, the towing sail will drag the entire trap and the captured object to the Earth, where it will eventually burn up in the atmosphere."

Hearing this, Luo Sheng couldn't help dragging his chin with one hand into a state of thought, and said to himself: "The solution provided by the Remove-Debris space junk trap can only be valuable for space junk with large volume and mass, and small debris is obviously not good. ”

Judging from the Remove-Debris test process, the cost of this solution is not low, and it is good to deal with large space junk debris, but if it is a small level, using this solution is like fighting mosquitoes with anti-aircraft guns, which is not cost-effective.

Luo Sheng said: "Xiao Na, have you recruited a provider of space debris disposal solutions less than 10 centimeters? ”

There are 500,000 or 600,000 fast debris flying around in space orbit, of which there are more than 20,000 debris with a diameter of more than 10 centimeters.

And the more headache is precisely those small debris, space junk in space at a speed of 6,000 to 7 kilometers per second, because the relative speed is very high, the potential harm is great, a space junk weighing only 10 grams of impact ability, is also equivalent to the energy generated by the head-on collision of two cars traveling at 100 kilometers per hour.

For the Forerunner 2 space station, which is operating in low orbit, the threat of small debris is huge, and the threat of a potential series of impact events will be difficult to remove without clearing these space debris.

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