Japanese Firm Is Going To Test World's First Space Elevator

A team of Japanese researchers from Shizuoka University is working for the first ever space elevator that will going to launch an experimental test by this week.

                                   Photo Credit: NASA


This will be connected to a 10-meter steel cable suspended in space between two small satellites for an elevator car to move along. Japanese researchers developed the miniature elevator, which comes in the form of a box measuring 2.4 inches long, three centimeters wide and three centimeters high.

The test will be filmed by camera attached to the satellites. It is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan's Kagoshima prefecture at 6:30 PM EDT on Monday, though it will be early Tuesday morning (Sept. 11) local time at the launch site, Space.com reported.

Tokyo based Obayashi Corp announced in 2014 the plan to build a commercial space elevator by 2050. The strucure was composed of a 96,000 kms carbon nanotube cable, a 400 meter diameter floating Earth Port and a 12,500 Ton counterbalance that could carry 100Tons climbers.  

If the experiment is successful, it could boost interest in the space-elevator transportation system going to space.

Yogi Ishikawa told ABC Australia that the tensile strength is almost a hundred times stronger than of steel cable so it's possible. "Right now we can't make the cable long enough. We can only make 3-centimeter-long nanotubes but we need moch more...we think by 2030 we'll be able to do it."

         Nano Carbon Tubes spun to form a yarn. Image via CSIRO

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