Japan hopes to deploy a giant net in Earth orbit to sweep up space junk.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Nitto Seimo Co, a fishing net company, are planning to tackle the increasingly hazardous problem of debris that threatens to wreck space shuttles and satellites.

Last year, a U.S. report concluded that space was so littered with rubbish that a collision could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth.

The thin metal net, spanning several kilometres, will be deployed by satellite and sweep up waste in its path as it circles the Earth. After a journey lasting several weeks, the net will become charged with electricity and be drawn back towards Earth with both the net and its contents burning up on entering the atmosphere.

Hmmmm… seems to me some of the “junk” would destroy the net depending on which direction and speed it was going.

Found by Obtuser.