Sun seekers: Advances in space exploration technology could herald the answer to the global energy crisis and the search for emission-free sources to replace fossil fuels

摘要

IN JULY a team of engineers from Europe and Japan will launch two small crawling robots into space. This humble experiment may come to represent a major step in the development of an emission-free energy source to meet all of Earth's requirements The robots, one made in Europe and one expected to be from Japan, will be launched from Japan in a small test rocket. When the rocket reaches a height of 220km three daughter satellites will be separated from their mother satellite to stretch out a 40m×40m Furoshiki net. A microwave antenna will then be switched on and begin transmitting signals to a receiver on the ground, and the robots will spend three minutes crawling across the net, under the eye of several cameras.