Wednesday, February 15, 2012

"Swiss “janitor satellite” to clean up space"

But of course.
I imagine the crew from the Royal Floor at Geneva's President Wilson Hotel were consulted.
From SwissInfo:
Swiss scientists plan to launch a mini satellite fitted with jellyfish-like tentacles that can clear some of the huge amount of debris orbiting above our heads.

Researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, (EPFL), hope the SFr10-million ($11-million) CleanSpaceOne prototype satellite will be in the skies by 2016 in a bid to help resolve the worsening space junk problem.

“It’s time to do something to reduce the amount of debris floating around in space,” Swiss astronaut and EPFL professor Claude Nicollier told reporters in Lausanne on Wednesday.

After two years of research scientists working on the CleanSpaceOne project aim to build the first prototype in a family of clean-up satellites.

Their initial space mission will be to target and de-orbit one of two Swiss satellites – the SwissCube or the TIsat, launched in 2009 and 2010, respectively....MORE