Hole Seekers | Design by Nature
The Challenge | Design by Nature
D cube
D cube is a revolutionary technique to detect impact damages on every satellite orbiting around earth.
While you are reading this passage, probably a satellite has been hitten by an undetectable object.
An enormous quantity of space junk is surrounding the planet. 95% of orbiting mass in the low earth orbit, where the majority of satellites is concentrated, is space junk. It is estimated that there are 300,000 pieces of space junk ranging from one-centimetre to the size of bowling balls. But even the smallest pieces of dust are able to cause an incredible amount of damage because of their speed. As a matter of fact each year a satellite is destroyed by space debris.
Our solution is a free flyer device able to find impact craters not detectable by any other modern technology. It is a constellation of satellites refilled by the ISS. It uses the LIDAR (laser imaging detection and ranging) technique to compare the original cad to measeurements made on the damaged satellite. It takes inspiration from bats' echolocation sounds, while the hub and spoke method and their internal cooperation well resemble bees' social organization
Sources:
SpaceApps is a NASA incubator innovation program.