Adhesive Flora Gripper with Claws for Debris Collection in Low Earth Orbit

There are around 10,000 satellites in low earth orbit which will be increasing at a rate of 2400 more satellites per year. Collisions in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) take place at a speed of 9-14 km/s.Space debris have been a vigorous factor of space mission failure and collisions in space.There are around 128 million fragments of debris particle in the size of 1 mm to 1 cm and around 9,00,000 particles in the size of 1cm to 10 cm. This paper presents a basic ideology of utilizing a 3-dimensional floral shaped adhesive gripper functioning with electrostatic force to grab the debris below 10 cm in LEO in an effective manner.Each petal of the flower works autonomously beyond the variation of stress conditions of other petals and tested under various temperature and microgravity condition bringing out a success rate of 78% to 80% of noncooperative target capture.It focuses on the thermal and static stability of the gripper enhancing it to function regardless of unpredictable conditions in space.