NASA has awarded The Aerospace Corporation a grant to investigate the possibility of developing an extremely thin spacecraft that would wrap around debris and remove it from Earth’s orbit.
The concept, called Brane Craft, is a 1-meter square spacecraft that is less than half the thickness of a human hair, and therefore exceptionally light, maneuverable, and fuel efficient.
“The Brane Craft concept is based on the one-dimensional compression of a complete spacecraft and upper stage into an essentially two-dimensional object in order to maximize power-to-weight and aperture-to-weight ratios,” said Dr. Siegfried Janson, Aerospace’s senior scientist of the Microsatellite Systems Department and the lead investigator on this project.
To put the mass in perspective, a GPS IIF satellite weighs about 1500 kg, and a standard CubeSat is about 1 kg. The Brane Craft would only weigh about 50 grams.
The 30-micron-thick spacecraft would have a very high thrust-to-weight ratio, and would be capable of traveling long distances, which opens up other possibilities beyond just the removal of space debris.
For more information on the Brane Craft, please visit – http://www.aerospace.org/news/highlights/paper-thin-spacecraft-could-take-out-the-trash-in-space/.
The Aerospace Corporation is a California nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center and has approximately 3,600 employees. It provides guidance and advice to military, civil and commercial customers to ensure the success of complex, technology-based programs. The Aerospace Corporation is headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., with multiple locations across the United States.
