Dropping a line from space
Tether offers down-to-Earth approach to payload delivery.
As Nature went to press, scientists were scrambling to locate a small capsule from space now believed to be somewhere in Kazakhstan. The capsule is part of an ambitious experimental space-mail delivery system that aimed to use a 30-kilometre-long satellite tether — the longest yet. In the early hours of 25 September, the ribbon from the satellite orbiting 300 kilometres above Earth was cut and the capsule parachuted to Earth, although off-target.