Japanese want to turn ISS into a kind of Death Star because of space junk

By admin On Apr 18, 2015

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The International Space Station must be equipped with lasers to be able to shoot down floating objects. According to the Japanese creators, this can be used to combat space debris, but the plan looks suspiciously like the Death Star from Star Wars.

The plans were devised by the Japanese institute Riken. In response to the growing amount of space debris from discarded satellites and other objects, they propose lasers. They are to be mounted on the International Space Station. The armament allows the ISS to defend itself against space debris.

In the future, the ISS should be able to detect space debris with the EUSO telescope, which was designed by the Japanese. The telescope should be launched sometime in the next few years and mounted in the Japanese part of the space station. EUSO is still under development with the initial goal of studying cosmic rays.

After detection comes destruction, which is why the Japanese are thinking of a laser system with 10,000 optical fibers. That system is borrowed from a laser used in particle accelerators. According to the Japanese, space debris can be fired at up to a distance of 100 km. Incidentally, the aim of the shelling is to remove the space debris from orbit, causing it to crash and burn in the atmosphere. The lasers are probably not powerful enough for direct destruction.

Incidentally, Riken first wants to set up a test system on the ISS. A less powerful laser with 100 optical fibers will be used to test the concept. A small 20cm telescope is also used before launching the EUSO telescope. The latter is about 3 meters tall.

Arming the ISS is still in the future, but Riken is already looking further afield. For example, the institute wants to launch a laser system that will orbit the Earth in an orbit of 800 km, considerably higher than the 400 km of the ISS. The reason for this mission is that most of the space debris is lying around at this altitude. It is not yet clear what such a mission will look like.

The idea of the laser armament seems to have been copied from the Death Star. This Star Wars space station has the capacity to completely destroy planets with its laser system. It is unlikely that Riken pursues such ambitions.