JAXA: Japan building 'space net' to catch space debris

JAXA, Japan's space agency says it is teaming up with a maker of fishing nets to create a "space net" for safely collecting orbiting space debris.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Nitto Seimo Co. propose launching a satellite, attached to a thin metal net spanning more than a mile, into space before the net is detached and begins to capture space waste while orbiting earth, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

As it collects debris the net would become electrically charged and be attracted back to earth by the planet's magnetic field, causing the net and its contents to safely burn up in the atmosphere.

As many as 10 million pieces of "space junk" are estimated to be orbiting Earth at any one time and are a cause for concern because of the potential for collisions with satellites and shuttles.

Nitto Seimo, which became famous for inventing the world's first machine to make strong knotless fishing nets in 1925, says it has been researching super-strong space nets for six years.

The space net would consist of three layered metal threads, each measuring 1mm diameter (0.03 inch) and intertwined with fibers as thin as human hair.

Nitto Seimo says its goal is to have the system developed with two years.

Hand Preference in Humans, Animals Explained

When a Southpaw shakes hands, his left eye and the right portion of his brain are working hard to process the other individual, suggests a new study. The research helps to explain why hand and limb preferences exist across numerous species.

The predisposition, as it turns out, are tied to ocular dominance, or the tendency to prefer visual input from one eye over the other, according to the study, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters.

Ocular dominance, in turn, is driven by cerebral lateralization, which refers to how information processing is divided and coordinated between the brain's left and right hemispheres.

In recent U.S. history, the majority of presidents have been left-handed (Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William Clinton and Barack Obama), but scientists haven't yet found a link between hand preference and an individual's abilities.

"At this stage we have no reason to think that left- or right-brained animals are superior or analyze information differently, except that it's the mirror image," co-author Culum Brown told Discovery News.

Brown, director of Advanced Biology at Macquarie University, and colleague Maria Magat studied the phenomenon in Australian parrots. These birds, like humans, have a tendency to use either their right or left limb more than the other.

The researchers recorded the eye and foot preferences of the parrots while the birds investigated small pieces of fruit and brightly colored wooden blocks. The majority of the birds showed a clear tendency to investigate the objects using either their left or right eye.

This eye preference was found to directly correspond to the foot that each parrot used to manipulate the food or block. If one of the birds focused on the fruit with its right eye, for example, then it would tend to use its right foot to grasp and move around the food. This provides a better view in front of the preferred eye.

Since the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere control's the body's right side, the eye and limb preferences also reveal which side of the individual's brain dominates, at least during visual investigations.

Genetics, combined with personal experience, likely help to control cerebral lateralization. Sulpher crested cockatoos are all left footed, and prior research on these birds found that they start off experimenting with both feet, but eventually settle on the left.

Read More: Hand Preference in Humans, Animals Explained : Discovery News

NASA ISS Image: Tropical Cyclone Yasi

This image provided by NASA shows Tropical Cyclone Yasi as it approaches Queensland, Australia

Picture: NASA

Laser rifle: a weapon against pirates

BAE Systems, a British defense company demonstrated how a non-lethal laser weapon can be used to ward off pirates.

Now, American researchers have created a more powerful laser gun that should be more effective against sea bandits.

While the crystalline Neodymium Yttrium Aluminium Garnet laser canon, developed by BAE Systems, can temporarily disorient an assailant with a pulse of blinding light, another prototype called the TR3 Threat Deterrent Laser Rifle is compact and the laser settings can be adjusted to inflict some serious pain.

To learn more about BAE Systems’ laser canon, check out John Herrman’s Smart Planet post here

The TR3, developed by Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems and SPA Defense, can deliver an intense 3-watt green laser at targets up to one and a half miles away. The greater range is most effective when operated at night. The rifle’s re-chargeable lithium-ion battery allows for up to 30 plus minutes of continuous firing.

David Crane of DefenseReview.com got to test out a prototype during the recent Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show and Conference or SHOT show and described the experience on his website:

"We got to try the TR3 ourselves, and came away very impressed with it. You can adjust the intense green laser beam’s focus using a dial that surrounds the weapon’s emitter (“barrel”/”muzzle”). You can disperse the beam so that it’s eye-safe for hitting bad guys in the face, or dial the beam into a retina-frying focus."
"Unfortunately, we didn’t shoot video of the TR3 operating, during the demo."

A video produced by the company, shows the TR3 in action does exist but is not currently available in the public domain.

The TR3 is intended for military and defense markets only but it's only a matter of time until this weapon becomes more readily available.

Fuelling The Clyde Space Rocket

Glasgow based Clyde Space, a leading provider of miniature spacecraft, has secured a funding package worth £1m, including significant equity investment, to support the company's growth in a burgeoning global space market.

The investment package was led by private equity firm Nevis Capital and includes funding from Coralinn LLP.

Additional funding from Scottish Enterprise, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Technology Strategy Board and Regional Selective Assistance are included to support innovation and growth across all company activities.

Clyde Space is widely regarded as one of the most innovative young companies in the UK and in just 5 years has become the largest indigenous space company in Scotland.

The company has a global customer portfolio including the European Space Agency, several USA based customers in addition to other global customers in countries such as Turkey, South Africa, India, China, South America, Canada.

The funding will support Clyde Space to expand its product range and capability offering and increase its global market share.

The success of Clyde Space comes from the company's ability to produce high quality, high performance systems for very small spacecraft called 'CubeSats'. One of the first commercial companies in the World to recognise the potential of CubeSats for space applications, Clyde Space has about 30-40% market share of the global CubeSat power market.

Clyde Space are expanding their CubeSat capabilities with UKube1, a 5kg satellite being developed and built in Glasgow by Clyde Space for the UK Space Agency and due for launch late 2011.

About 50% of turnover at Clyde Space is from the sales of power components for larger spacecraft, including power controllers, batteries and solar panels. Clyde Space solar panels were launched last year on the South African mission, 'SumbandilaSat'.

Clyde Space founder and CEO, Craig Clark, sits on the UK Space Leadership Council. He said; 'I am absolutely delighted with the funding package. For me, this funding round is not just about financial support, but about the people. I met the guys from Nevis about 5 years ago and, having got to know them in the interim period, I knew that Nevis would be an excellent fit to invest in Clyde Space.

In addition, Hugh Stewart has an outstanding record in growing globally successful companies. I couldn't be more happy to have them on board.' On the government support Craig said; 'We are very fortunate in Scotland and the UK to have superb support from government for innovative technology companies in growth markets - both Scottish Enterprise, STFC and the Technology Strategy Board continue to be a major factor in the success of Clyde Space.'

ISS conjunction alert cancelled

NASA are reported a conjunction alert for the ISS: A piece of space debris (object 37117 in the tracking database consisting of debris from Russia’s COSMOS 2252 satellite) may pass within 0.115 km of the ISS. ISS mission controllers are now assessing what action to take, including a potential debris avoidance manoeuvre (DAM) as soon as tomorrow.

Just as ESA’s Emilio de Pasquale mentions in our flight dynamics profile video (see post below), the ISS is a big, living object – a moving ‘target’ for the ATV Johannes Kepler. Every change in the ISS orbit – including any avoidance manoeuvre in the coming days – will require recalculations of ATV-2′s planned trajectory. Looks like the flight dynamics teams for both the ATV and the ISS are busy this week!

According to NASA, ISS flight controllers were contemplating a DAM as early as 9:14 CET on 1 February. Full details after the jump.

Tracking data on the object are sparse and the small radial miss distance of the object (0.115 km – just 115 metres) warrant close monitoring.

The predicted time of closest approach for the conjunction is during HTV robotics operation scheduled for Tuesday morning, 1 February. The standard template for performing the manoeuvre as close as possible to the time of closest approach (thus buying time to cancel if not required – no one likes to use fuel unnecessarily). The orbit change would take place at 9:14 CET on 1 February.

Initial coordination with the ISS Flight Control Team has led to an acceleration of the engine ignition time by three orbits to allow the robotics operations to continue as planned. BY coincidence, an ISS reboost of 0.6 m/second was already planned for 9 February. Engineers are investigating if tomorrow’s debris avoidance manoeuvre could replace this reboost meeting the same constraints which ensuring a safe trajectory from the conjunction.

24HR view of the Sky

Photographer Chris Kotsiopoulos; Chris’ Website
Summary Author: Chris Kotsiopoulos
 
After wondering for some time whether it was possible to image the sky from one morning to the next where he lives in Athens Greece, Chris decided to give it a try.

After hours of planning and preparation, and a full day of shooting, the image above is the result of this labour of love.

It took about 12 hours to pull together and process a single image that included over 500 star trails, 35 shots of the Sun and 25 landscape pictures.

The plan was to make the image on the day of the solstice (December 21) when the Sun’s stay in the sky was short (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the star trail durations were long.

Of course, trying to find clear weather for a given 24-hour period is not an easy chore. However, he was very patient, and the weather eventually cooperated (on December 30-31, 2010).

He had to stay at the same place for approximately 30 hours. In addition, he was on location 2-3 hours before sunrise to make the preparations and conduct some test shooting.

He also needed to stay an extra 2-3 hours the second day to shoot part of the Sun's sequence, which was lost the first morning due to clouds.

Chris chose Sounion (Temple of Poseidon) as the setting for this project. Click on image to see labels.