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Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
The REACCH (Responsive Engaging Arms for Captive Care and Handling) system was developed by Kall Morris Inc. (KMI).
Makoto Yukimura began publishing "Planetes" in Japan in 1999; the first graphic novel form was published in 2000. Planetes follows the story of a team of debris cleaners charged with clearing space junk from space flight paths.
— Bill Christensen (@Technovelgy) June 18, 2026
The REACCH (Responsive Engaging Arms for Captive Care and Handling) system can dock with an unprepared space object, latch on, and safely steer it to a new position or deorbit it, functioning as an orbital tow truck. This capability is especially important for addressing space debris, the millions of human-made objects in Earth’s orbit that are no longer useful...So how does REACCH capture debris? The system consists of a small hub with eight articulated metal arms that mechanically unfurl around an object, conforming to its surface. As soon as the first arm segments near the hub detect pressure, the motion cascades down the arms like falling dominoes.
“The complex mechanical engineering within the arms allows us to deploy them not as a bear hug, where the tips of the arm trace the outer path of the object, but instead as a kind of unrolling pattern very similar to what octopi do,” Kall said. “It doesn’t matter the geometry of what you’re grabbing, the arms will follow the surface.”
The arms also have a micro-patterned dry adhesive, a class of materials that imitate how gecko feet stick to things, explained Tom Ziegler, an electrical engineer at KMI. It may be surprising, but when two materials touch, most of their surface area is not making contact. Even for extremely smooth surfaces, the points where the surfaces actually touch are very minimal.
(Via ISSNationalLab.)
(REACHH system at NASA's Ames Research Center)
Makoto Yukimura began publishing Planetes in Japan in 1999; the first graphic novel form was published in 2000. Planetes follows the story of a team of debris cleaners charged with clearing space junk from space flight paths.
People have been working on this problem for quite a while in theory, but have not been doing much in actuality. Consider this article I wrote twenty years ago - NanoTerminator Prevents Annoying Space Debris Build-Up.
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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