Arx Pax, the company that brought to life last year a Back to the Future-style hoverboard, announced now a partnership with NASA to develop applications for its magnetic levitation technology. This partnership can be considered as an early validation of the startup's great ambitions.
According to reports, NASA and Arx Pax will work together to develop a device able to attract one object to another from a distance. The leader in magnetic field technology will help create object coupling to be used for micro-satellites.
The collaboration between the two organizations takes the form of a Space Act Agreement. According to reports, the joint venture project aims to find a way to manipulate tiny satellites called cubesats without the need to actually touch them.
Arx Pax has become known as the creator of hover engine technology and Magnetic Field Architecture. The company entered into a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with the purpose to collaborate on developing a "tractor beam" technology like the one we could see only in sci-fi movies like Star Trek. Arx Pax's MFA will help creating micro-satellite capture devices that will manipulate and couple satellites from a distance. According to scientists, this can be achieved by using a magnetic tether between the objects.
The tractor beam device designed by the two companies will draw as well as repel satellites at the same time. This way it will be able to hold a satellite at a distance immobilized and won't allow it to move toward or away of the capture device. This will enable the possibility to manipulate and the capability to capture micro-satellites or other objects without the need of making any physical contact with them.
The device Arx Pax and NASA plan to develop is expected to enhance the capabilities and efficiency of micro-satellites, according to experts. This may lead to new possibilities in terms of space exploration research, however its long-term potential is reaching far beyond that.
According to Luke Murchison, On-Orbit Autonomous Assembly from Nanosatellites Project Manager, NASA Langley Research Center, the research team will continue to place emphasis on collaboration and innovation and they are excited and confident about the possibilities this agreement proposes.
Greg Henderson, co-founder and CEO at Arx Pax, declared that this collaboration marks an important milestone for Arx Pac and it is exciting to work hand-in-hand with NASA's brilliant team of engineers and scientists.
The high-tech tractor beams developed by the two organizations are reminding of the space-based hover engine we could see in sci-fi movies, however, according to researchers it, wouldn't be able to draw spacecraft in from far away like a tractor beam from "Star Trek." According to an interview of Henderson for The Verge, in case of their technology "we're talking on the scale of centimeters".
