Japan's JAXA space agency launched a cargo shuttle carrying more than four tons of food, water, and supplies to the International Space Station on Friday. And, there's a really long whip. 
 
 Japan's H-IIB rocket with a capsule called Kounotori, or stork, lifts off at the Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southern Japan, on Friday. The Japanese capsule contains nearly 5 tons of food, water and other supplies, including new lithium-ion batteries for the International Space Station’s solar power system. 
 
 Japan’s space program, JAXA, soars this weekend after its robotic cargo spacecraft began its four-day journey to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday. 
 
 Onboard the spacecraft, called Kounotori (after the Japanese word for “white stork"), are more than four tons of cargo, including JAXA’s massive debris clearing space whip and a new array of lithium ion batteries for the space station’s solar arrays. 
 
 Friday’s cargo launch is particularly important after the failure of a Russian Progress cargo launch earlier this month. Several other cargo launches have met similar fates over the past two years. This is JAXA’s sixth cargo launch to the ISS. 
 
 "Spaceflight's not an easy thing," said NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson in an interview aboard the ISS. "We just have to keep pressing ourselves to do the right thing, make sure we're doing all the right tests ... so that we don't have these problems," the Associated Press reported. 
 
 Other supplies being delivered by Kounotori include several tons of food and water. The batteries being ferried by the craft will also be immensely helpful for the ISS crew members, who plan to replace the older nickel-hydrogen batteries now used to store energy from the station’s solar panels. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting piece of cargo, however, is a 2,296-foot tether made of aluminum and steel. Space experts hope to use this tether to help clean up the more than 20,000 pieces of space debris that have been judged “potentially hazardous” to further space exploration, as NPR reported. 
 
 Scientists have been concerned about space debris for a long time. After six decades of space exploration, hundreds of old satellite pieces and miscellaneous space junk now litter the Earth's orbit zone that many satellites must traverse. As long ago as 1984, the European Space Administration (ESA) began concerned about the dangers this debris might pose. 
 
 “Up to now, there has been more concern about radio interference among satellites than about collision. But as ESA points out, a collision would not only damage satellites, it would create a cloud of debris. There would be a growing and uncontrollable risk of further collisions,” reported The Christian Science Monitor’s Robert Cowan in 1984. 
 
 “Thus it seems that development of the space frontier has already reached a level where neighborhood trash removal has become a necessity.” 
 
 This May, the ISS itself was damaged by a tiny flying piece of debris when it hit the windows of the station’s cupola. The debris, which scientists speculate was likely a flake of paint or small piece of metal, caused a chip in the cupola’s window. While the ISS was built to withstand strikes such as the one in May, the incident is indicative of a bigger problem. 
 
 Today, NASA says that it is tracking more than 500,000 pieces of space debris in orbit, all of which could severely damage a satellite or spacecraft. Pieces smaller than a single centimeter are dangerous enough, NASA says, but anything larger than a single centimeter could penetrate the shields of the ISS. 
 
 And when two or more pieces of debris strike each other, the result is thousands more pieces of potentially dangerous junk orbiting the planet. 
 
 JAXA hopes to eliminate some of this problem with its massive electrodynamic space tether, which the agency hopes will be able to snag and redirect larger pieces of space junk into Earth’s atmosphere, where they will burn up and become harmless upon entry. 
 
 If the space tether works, it will be good news for space agencies. Unfortunately, however, JAXA will only have one shot at using the “space whip” on the Kounotori’s return trip to Earth before the cargo shuttle burns up upon re-entry. ||||| Japan Sends Long Electric Whip Into Orbit, To Tame Space Junk 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption JAXA JAXA 
 
 A cable that's as long as six football fields has been launched into orbit — and when it's deployed, it'll test an idea to knock out orbital debris. Japan's space agency sent the electrodynamic tether into space along with supplies for the International Space Station. 
 
 Reels aboard the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kounotori 6 craft will deploy the 700-meter (2,296 feet) tether, essentially unspooling a clothesline in space that could help clean up the roughly 20,000 pieces of potentially hazardous space debris that are tracked by systems on Earth. 
 
 Those pieces of junk are dangerous enough on their own — but they can also generate thousands more smaller pieces of debris if they collide, creating even more risk to the space station and satellites orbiting the Earth. 
 
 With the official acronym of EDT (for electrodynamic tether), the Kounotori's cable "is a promising candidate to deorbit the debris objects at low cost," JAXA says. 
 
 As illustrated by a video, the Japanese agency's plan is to use the electrified tether — counter-weighted by a 20 kilogram (44-pound) end mass — to slow down and redirect space junk into a safe but fiery reentry into the atmosphere. 
 
 YouTube 
 
 According to the video, the tether will be able to change its position relative to the Kounotori craft by the use of force that's generated by an electric current and the Earth's magnetic field. The video also depicts the tether being attached to a large piece of debris so the space trash can be guided down into a destructive reentry. 
 
 Space debris has been seen as a problem for years — back in 2011, the National Research Council said the number of items had reached "tipping point" in terms of the dangers they posed to astronauts and spacecraft. 
 
 As we reported last year, "According to the Royal Institution in London, there are about 20,000 pieces of tracked space debris, ranging from larger than an apple to as big as a school bus. (There are far more objects smaller than that, including millions of pieces of debris too tiny to track, according to NASA.)" 
 
 There's a good chance we could see video of the new JAXA system being tested: Deployment of the tether will be monitored by cameras aboard the Kounotori. 
 
 According to JAXA, the Kounotori is scheduled to dock at the International Space Station on Dec. 14; the tether won't be unleashed until the Kounotori leaves the space station bearing a new cargo of waste — with the entire craft destined to burn up on reentry. ||||| Space isn’t so empty these days. Earth’s orbit is cluttered with more than half a million bits of debris, mostly rocket and satellite remnants that can wreck anything in their flight path. 
 
 A 106-year-old Japanese fishing net maker may have a solution. Nitto Seimo Co. is working with Japan’s space agency to develop a mesh material to tether and drag bus-size pieces of space junk into the atmosphere for incineration. Scientists will get their first indication of whether the metallic line will work when it’s tested in orbit next month, said project chief Koichi Inoue, an associate principal researcher at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. 
 
 Read more about Asia's space race ➝ 
 
 The experiment is part of an international cleanup effort planning to safeguard astronauts and about $900 billion worth of space stations, satellites and other infrastructure relied on for telecommunications, weather forecasting, Earth-monitoring and navigation. With debris traveling at up to 17,500 miles an hour, the impact of even a marble-size projectile can cause catastrophic damage as portrayed in the Academy Award-winning movie Gravity. 
 
 Objects in Earth’s Orbit Total Objects* 18000 Collision between the Iridium and Russian Cosmos satellites 16000 14000 Russian satellite hit by debris from Chinese anti-satellite test 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1957 1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017 *Catalogued objects of 2 inches or more in diameter Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Total Objects* 18000 Collision between the Iridium and Russian Cosmos satellites 16000 14000 Russian satellite hit by debris from Chinese anti-satellite test 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1957 2017 *Catalogued objects of 2 inches or more in diameter Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Total Objects* 18000 Collision between the Iridium and Russian Cosmos satellites 16000 14000 Russian satellite hit by debris from Chinese anti-satellite test 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1965 1989 1957 1993 1981 1985 1997 2001 1961 1969 1973 1977 2005 2009 2013 2017 *Catalogued objects of 2 inches or more in diameter Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Total Objects* 18000 Collision between the Iridium and Russian Cosmos satellites 16000 14000 Russian satellite hit by debris from Chinese anti-satellite test 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 ’65 2017 ’89 ’93 ’81 ’85 ’97 ’01 ’61 ’69 ’73 ’77 ’05 ’09 ’13 1957 *Catalogued objects of 2 inches or more in diameter Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
 
 “We need to take action on this massive amount of debris,” Inoue said at the JAXA campus in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo. “People haven’t been injured by the debris yet, but satellites have. We have to act.” 
 
 Harpooning Junk 
 
 Spacefaring nations around the world are pursuing different strategies for harpooning, sweeping, lassoing and dragging debris and redundant gear of varying sizes into the atmosphere for burning or into a so-called graveyard orbit, where they can’t collide with operational equipment. NASA’s Hubble Telescope has a 1-centimeter hole in one of its dish antennas, and solar panels have been cracked and chipped by tiny debris, according to its website. 
 
 “There’s a significant value to the industry of mitigating that risk,” said Ben Greene, chief executive officer of Sydney-based Electro Optic Systems Holdings Ltd., which is developing land-based laser technology to track and alter the course of space debris smaller than a flat-screen TV. The space industry has spent A$300 million ($230 million) during the past five years trying to quantify the risk of accidents caused by junk, he said. 
 
 The global launch industry is booming, with revenue of $5.4 billion last year, according to the Satellite Industry Association. That’s a 23 percent increase since 2010. A total of 202 military, commercial and scientific satellites were launched last year. 
 
 The program in Japan “is terribly valuable,” Greene said. “It’s technically sound. There’s no reason not to do it, but it only works for really huge pieces of junk.” 
 
 Knotless Net 
 
 Nitto Seimo started making minnow nets in 1910 and invented the knotless net machine in 1925. Japan’s largest maker of fishing nets was asked by the space agency about a decade ago to develop a metal mesh line, said Katsuya Suzuki, a subsection chief who previously oversaw the project for the Tokyo-based company. JAXA wanted mesh, instead of a single cable, because it would be harder to break. 
 
 Making knotless nets at Nitto Seimo’s Fukuyama factory. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg 
 
 “It was extremely difficult,” said Suzuki, whose employer also makes nets for trawling, fish farming and keeping animals out of agricultural areas. “At first, we could only make 20 or 30 centimeters. It took us until about 2010 until we could finally make several hundred meters.” 
 
 The aluminum-containing line is designed to harness Earth’s electromagnetic forces to propel tethered objects out of orbit and into the atmosphere for destruction. Nitto Seimo may build a line as long as 10 kilometers if next month’s experiment using a 700-meter piece is successful, Suzuki said. 
 
 The company spent 20 million-30 million yen ($195,000-$295,000) building a machine to make the conductive material, and it wants a working prototype by 2025. 
 
 Station Moved 
 
 JAXA wants to run a second test of its tethering approach as early as 2020, Inoue said, adding that the costs of mitigating damage from orbital debris are hastening the organization’s efforts. 
 
 “The International Space Station has to be moved to avoid it,” he said. “That costs money and time, which cuts back on working time.” 
 
 Satellite collisions and testing of anti-satellite weapons have added thousands of debris fragments in the atmosphere since 2007, according to NASA. 
 
 An illustration of a tether extending from the Kounotori transfer vehicle, foreground, shows JAXA’s debris-catching technology. Source: JAXA 
 
 The problem is getting more pressing as space becomes more popular. At least 19 countries have, are developing or are planning to host spaceports for orbital or suborbital launches, the Colorado-based nonprofit Space Foundation said in its 2016 Space Report. 
 
 “Debris hitting debris creates more debris, so you have this cascade effect and end up with so much space debris that it becomes a real danger to operational satellites and new launches,” said Steve Gower, general manager of the Space Environment Research Centre in Canberra, Australia, that also gets funding from Japan and the U.S. “Every time we launch a satellite, we need to plan a path to avoid space junk.”
– Can a whip as long as six football fields destroy some of the 500,000 pieces of space junk spinning around Earth at 17,500 miles per hour? Japan's space agency sure hopes so. JAXA launched its Kounotori 6 spacecraft on Friday with tons of supplies bound for the International Space Station, where it's expected to arrive on Wednesday, reports NPR. Also on board is a 2,300-feet electrodynamic tether, or EDT, made of aluminum and steel, in the works for more than a decade. JAXA says it will use an electric current and Earth's magnetic field to slow down debris and shove it out of orbit and toward Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up. The EDT and the Kounotori, which will also carry waste from the ISS, will then meet the same fate. It's unclear how many pieces of space junk might be destroyed using the EDT, but this is mostly a test. If all goes well, JAXA plans to create a second tether up to six miles in length, reports Bloomberg. The BBC notes this is one of a few efforts underway to tackle space junk, which poses hazards for astronauts and their equipment. In May, for example, a tiny piece of space junk—possibly a speck of paint—chipped a window in the ISS' Cupola observatory, reports Christian Science Monitor. As the ISS wouldn't stand a chance against some debris as large as a bus, it has to be moved to avoid an impact, says project chief Koichi Inoue. Kounotori's EDT "is a promising candidate to deorbit the debris objects at low cost," JAXA says. (You can now adopt space junk.)