The international space station must be equipped with lasers for airborne objects to be able to shoot. According to the Japanese authors, this allows debris to be contained, but the plan seems suspiciously like the Death Star from Star Wars.
The plans are conceived by the Japanese institute Riken. In response to the growing amount of space debris by discarded satellites and other objects they lasers. That should be mounted on the international space station. By arming the ISS to defend itself against space debris.
In the future, the ISS, space debris may be detected by the EUSO telescope, which by the Japanese is designed. The telescope should be sometime in the next few years to be launched and be made in the Japanese part of the space station. EUSO is still in development, with the initial goal to cosmic radiation should be studied.
After detection comes the destruction, and therefor think the Japanese at a laser system with 10,000 optical fibers. That system is copied from a laser that is used in particle accelerators. According to the Japanese, there can only be up to a distance of 100km of debris to be shot at. Incidentally, it is the purpose of the shelling of the space debris from the orbit to the earth, causing it to crash and burn in the atmosphere. For direct destruction, the lasers probably not powerful enough.
Incidentally, wants the Bio first, and have a test system set up on the ISS. A less powerful laser with 100 optical fibres will be used in order to test the concept. There is also a small telescope of 20cm, before the EUSO telescope to launch. That last, incidentally, is about 3 meters.
The arm of the ISS, which is still future music, but the Bio is already looking further. As the institute is a laser system to launch in an orbit of 800km altitude to the earth is going to float, is significantly higher than the 400 km of the ISS. Reason of that mission is that at this altitude the most of the space debris desirable. How such a mission will look like is not yet clear.
The idea of the laserbewapening seems to be copied from the Death Star. This space station from Star Wars has the capacity to planets completely destroy it with his laser system. It is not likely that Riken such ambitions in mind.
