

Fiction plays the role of inspiration this time around with a NASA-funded plan that intends to use rockets along the same vein, throwing small satellites in the direction of other planets. Known as the NanoTHOR project, the ultimate aim is to hook up small satellites with upper rocket stages by using tethers that measure miles in length, allowing the rocket stages to spin the satellites around similar to how Thor does with his hammer.

NASA has given $100,000 from its Innovative Advanced Concepts program towards this idea, so that computer simulations and a hardware design can be figured out for real world action. The nanosatellites used will be known as CubeSats, and they are as small as the size of a loaf of bread, making me wonder what happens when the trajectory is calculated wrongly, or there is no way to tell that there will be one large obstacle coming in the way of the satellite to smash it into smithereens, but I guess this is what NASA’s brains are paid for, right?

Filed in General. Read more about nasa and space.

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