NASA has a research team command and capital given to the feasibility of a tractor beam or tractor beam to investigate. This should particles from the space will be collected for analysis on board of space vehicles.
The usual way to trial material from the space to obtain, for example, pieces of asteroid, or meteor, is particularly precious. So launched NASA’s Stardust satellite, which samples from the tail of a comet had to ‘create’ and return to the earth. With a tractor beam would be the collection of trial size products from a station on earth or from a satellite many times faster and cheaper. Therefore, NASA has a research team commissioned a feasibility study to examine three techniques that can achieve.
The researchers, working at the Goddard Space Flight Center, were given a budget of one hundred thousand dollars to investigate whether the three different laser techniques are suitable for particles from the space to themselves.
This can be, for example, two laser beams are used to create a particle via heating of the atmosphere out to the source of the beams to push. This technique is, however, limited to particles that are located in the upper layers of the atmosphere; for ruimtedeeltjes, this is not suitable. A different technique is suitable for particles in a vacuum. Thereby laser beams with a helical intensity is used, which particles, by means of an electromagnetic effect to be able to move. These two techniques have been laboratory demonstrated, while a third technique, based on so-called Bessel beams, still only theoretical.
The NASA team, which consists of the three researchers will first determine which of the techniques is suitable to ruimtesamples to collect. Then, on the basis of the findings a system be developed to allow satellites can actually be equipped.
