ALE, a New Space Entertainment Company Will Fabricate Artificial Meteor Showers on Demand
Every November, space dust from the Tempel-Tuttle comet burns up in the atmosphere resulting in the Leonid meteor shower sending bright sparks blazing through the night sky. However, in 2001, those watching from Earth witnessed not just to a shower, but a storm — thousands of shooting stars were visible in the largest show in decades.
Lena Okajima, a Japanese astronomy student, was one of the observers that night, and conversations with her friends afterwards inspired an ambitious idea. In September 2011, she founded ALE, a ‘space entertainment’ company that aims to fabricate artificial meteor showers on demand and sell them to music festivals, theme parks, and special events.
And now the concept is finally ready to be tested. Tomorrow, the company launches its first satellite into orbit aboard JAXA’s Epsilon rocket. The microsatellite, which weighs 65kg, will detach from the rocket when it reaches an altitude of 500 kilometres, and the first step will be to bring it slightly closer to Earth. A membrane will then open that will increase atmospheric drag on the satellite, bringing it slowly down to the target height of 400km.
Once it has settled, the satellite will produce meteors by releasing small particles, approximately a centimetre in size, that will burn brightly in the atmosphere as they fall towards Earth before disintegrating when they reach around 60km from the surface. ALE’s Hiroki Kajihara explained that in comparison to natural meteors, their meteors are much bigger and travel through the atmosphere more slowly, which enables them to be seen for a more extended period.
Two essential technologies are what makes this project doable. The first is the particle release system, which employs pressurized gas and is accurate to speeds of 3 metres per second, even as the satellite orbits at thousands of kilometres per hour. Kajihara stated that to produce a human-made meteor at a specific location and time, the meteor particle release parameters must be fine-tuned to a very high degree of accuracy.
The second technology is the particles themselves, which are composed of undisclosed but allegedly non-toxic materials that interact with the air in various ways to generate many different colours.
The project comes at a steep price — ALE has received financial backing from angel investors, venture capitalists, and Japanese banks. However, the company has not released details of how much they will charge for this service, but the price of launching the test satellite alone could surpass $1m. However, ALE states that each satellite could be used for thousands of separate releases.
Another significant technical challenge is getting the ‘meteors’ into the right place at the right time. As per Stephen Hobbs, who works on space systems at Cranfield University, randomly releasing the particles could cause a spread of up to 1,000km by the time they reach our planet — where an accuracy of 50km will be necessary to ensure the meteor shower is seen in the right place.
Another potential challenge could be the weather. Hobbs explained that it is very likely ALE will launch before they have a good weather forecast for their target area, but by selecting a ‘sun-synchronous’ orbit that follows night around the planet, the company could get multiple opportunities to offer the show each day, though at a different location each time.
Over the last few years, their system has undergone a variety of tests such as vibration tests in a vacuum chamber to simulate space. The company has also released meteor particles in the same chamber to test the angle and velocity of how they are released. This launch and another set for summer 2019 represent the final stages in development before the first artificial meteor shower, which is slated to light up the skies above Hiroshima in spring 2020, where it will be visible by six million people over 200km.
ALE intends to stage more space entertainment projects eventually, and although space junk is a growing concern, at this time, there’s nothing preventing anyone from launching as many satellites, electric cars, or art installations into orbit as they would like. Moreover, Hobbs believes ALE’s particular project will not be a problem for other space users due to the satellite’s planned altitude — around 8km below the International Space Station.
Kajihara also explained that numerous safety checks must be done before each launch to avoid any issues. The satellite will check the position and trajectory of other satellites, and has multiple redundant monitoring systems to ensure the particles are released in the right place and at the correct speed.
He also emphasizes that the mission, which they’ve nicknamed the Shooting Star Challenge, is not entirely for fun, stating that the upper atmosphere where their meteor showers will burn has few means of observation presently, and remains one of the least understood parts of the atmosphere. Thus, by studying how the particles release and move through this area, ALE hopes to help better scientific understanding. Kajihara said their project holds the potential application for the safe disposal of space debris, for example.
For Okajima, it’s a moment that’s been in the making for decades. She concluded that she hopes their human-made meteors will assist in uncovering discoveries in science and that they will also entertain people under the night sky.
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