US Patent Issued to Raytheon on Jan. 13 for "Deployable system for space debris collection" (Iowa, Tennessee Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,522,378, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Raytheon Co. (Arlington, Va.).

"Deployable system for space debris collection" was invented by David D. Crouch (Farragut, Tenn.) and Nathan T. Potratz (Marion, Iowa).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Space debris capture systems include an outer assembly and an inner assembly. The Outer assembly includes an outer membrane and an inner membrane, where, in a deployed state, the outer membrane is separated from the inner membrane by a separation gap. The inner assembly is arranged within the inner membrane of the outer assembly. The inner assembly is formed of a plurality of sheets of material arrange...