space junk
Contracts awarded for new Space Fence system
By Jeff Salton
00:16 July 21, 2009 PDT

Is it a bird, a plane, a UFO, or a piece of space junk hurtling towards Earth minutes away from catastrophe? Hopefully, before too long we won’t have to guess. The U.S. Air Force has awarded USD$30 million contracts to defense technology specialists Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to help create the prototype of a new situational awareness network dubbed "Space Fence". The Space Fence system will enable the Air Force to better detect, report and track very small objects in low Earth orbit. Read More
Space sail to take out the trash
By Darren Quick
12:47 April 26, 2009 PDT

We’ve recently examined the danger posed to future space missions by the ever increasing collection of space junk orbiting the Earth. Now a plan by a pair of space engineers to use a sail to take out the trash – or rather, bring it back to Earth – may help to stop future space missions adding to the problem of space junk. Read More














Sam Munro
- November 26, 2009 @ 08:08 UTC