ISS laser plan to clear space debris

A plan to use high-powered lasers to clear space debris could be tested on the International Space Station. Proposed by scientists at the RIKEN research institute near Tokyo, the plan would use a space telescope designed to study the effects of cosmic rays to spot debris, which would then be nudged out of orbit by an optical-fibre based laser.

The RIKEN team, led by Toshizaku Ebisuzki, has published its proposal in the journal Acta Astronautica. They suggest repurposing a telescope with a super-wide field of view, which is being developed at RIKEN as part of a project called  Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO) and is set to be mounted on the Japanese Experiment Module of the ISS. EUSO will scan a wide area of the Earth’s atmosphere looking for flashes of light that indicate the impact of a cosmic ray. We realised that we could put it to another use,” Ebisuzaki explained. “During twilight, thanks to EUSO’s wide field of view and powerful optics, we could adapt it to the new mission of detecting high-velocity debris in orbit near the ISS.”