Airbus testing huge harpoon to get rid of rogue satellites

Airbus has come up with a picturesque way to deal with the increasing problem of ‘space junk’ – harpooning rogue satellites out of the sky.

The company hopes to use a three-foot harpoon attached to a tether to capture rogue satellites, then drag them down into the atmosphere to burn up.

‘Space junk’ has hit the headlines this year as an out-of-control Chinese space station, Tiangong-1 is predicted to re-enter the atmosphere either this month or next, possibly raining debris over inhabited areas.

The harpoon is currently under test at Airbus’s facility in Stevenage, where it’s being fired into panels similar to those on real satellites, the BBC reports.

Advanced project engineer Alastair Wayman said, ‘The harpoon goes through these panels like a hot knife through butter.

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‘Once the tip is inside, it has a set of barbs that open up and stop the harpoon from coming back out. We’d then de-tumble the satellite with a tether on the other end.’

‘Many of these targets will be tumbling and if you were to use a robotic arm, say, that involves a lot of quite complex motions to follow your target.’