x
Help Us Guide You Better
best online ias coaching in india
2020-11-05

Download Pdf

banner

Science & Technology
www.thehindu.com

With more junk accumulating all the time, satellite collisions could become commonplace   | Photo Credit: EPFL

To help the European Space Agency remove space debris, a team of researchers from the Switzerland-based Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne(EPFL) is developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology.

"With more junk accumulating all the time, satellite collisions could become commonplace, making access to space dangerous," EPFL said in a statement.

It has set a mission to burn up Vespa, an obsolete payload adapter orbiting 660 kilometers above the Earth, by 2025. Vespa was once part of the European Space Agency’s Vega rocket.

To burn it, the team plans to use robotic arms of a capture rocket to grasp the Vespa and pull it back into the atmosphere.

A camera attached to it will be used to identify the Vespa that researchers believe is a challenge as nobody has really seen the space junk.

They are developing deep learning algorithms to estimate the target from video sequences and images taken in space.

EPFL is creating a database of synthetic images of the target object, a detailed 3D model of the Vespa to train the algorithms.

"The more exciting aspect of the project is that we are developing an algorithm that will eventually work in space," said Mathieu Salzmann, project leader at EPFL’s Computer Vision Laboratory.

However, researchers believe that making these algorithms 100% reliable in such harsh, and relatively unknown conditions with limited computational resources, is a challenge.

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

To get full access, please subscribe.

Already have an account ? Sign in

Start your 14 days free trial. Sign Up

Dear reader,

We have been keeping you up-to-date with information on the developments in India and the world that have a bearing on our health and wellbeing, our lives and livelihoods, during these difficult times. To enable wide dissemination of news that is in public interest, we have increased the number of articles that can be read free, and extended free trial periods. However, we have a request for those who can afford to subscribe: please do. As we fight disinformation and misinformation, and keep apace with the happenings, we need to commit greater resources to news gathering operations. We promise to deliver quality journalism that stays away from vested interest and political propaganda.

Dear subscriber,

Thank you!

Your support for our journalism is invaluable. It’s a support for truth and fairness in journalism. It has helped us keep apace with events and happenings.

The Hindu has always stood for journalism that is in the public interest. At this difficult time, it becomes even more important that we have access to information that has a bearing on our health and well-being, our lives, and livelihoods. As a subscriber, you are not only a beneficiary of our work but also its enabler.

We also reiterate here the promise that our team of reporters, copy editors, fact-checkers, designers, and photographers will deliver quality journalism that stays away from vested interest and political propaganda.

Suresh Nambath

Please enter a valid email address.

Subscribe to The Hindu now and get unlimited access.

Already have an account? Sign In

Start your 14 days free trial Sign Up

END
© Zuccess App by crackIAS.com