Top TechTop Tech #94: Cleaning Space Debris, Healing Plane Wings, Electric and Solar Planes
Important innovations in science and technology, every day
By Paul Worthington
Monday’s Top Tech:
• Sweeping up space debris
• Self-healing airplane wings
• Electric plane crosses English Channel
• Soaring Solar Plane
Sweeping up space debris
How can we eliminate all the potentially dangerous debris now orbiting our planet? Swiss researchers are going to try a net.
A small SwissCube satellite has been in Earth orbit for more than five years. Now a project developed at the EPFL research university in Lausanne, Switzerland plans to send a “space cleanup satellite” into orbit in 2018. It will deploy a conical net to capture the 10cm-Cube “and the two will combust together in the atmosphere.”
The university adds that “Space debris runs the gamut from broken down satellites to spent rocket stages; this detritus of all sizes and shapes orbiting the planet is increasing at an alarming rate. At a speed of 7 km/second, these pieces of space trash become powerful projectiles and constitute a serious threat to the devices and people working in space.”
Self-healing airplane wings
Tiny microspheres implanted in airplane wings will burst
when the wing is damaged — and the liquid carbon-based liquid they contain
would then harden and “heal” the plane in midflight.
That’s the plan of researchers at the University of Bristol, the BBC reports.
While the notion could boost flight safety, it’s aimed at tiny cracks, not major structural damage. “But micro-cracks can lead to catastrophic failures,” they add.
Electric plane crosses English Channel
European plane maker Airbus flew a prototype plane powered only by electricity across the English Channel.
The E-fan plane is 20 feet long and weighs 1300 pounds. It “has become the world’s first twin-engine electric plane taking off with its own power to successfully cross the English Channel,” the company says. It made the 74km crossing from Lydd, England to Calais, France in about 37 minutes.
Soaring Solar Plane
A sun-powered plane is setting new records: Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii after a nonstop 5,000-mile journey.
…Unfortunately, it’ll be grounded there for a week or more due to damage to its batteries. But after repairs, the round-the-world trip will continue.
