Eight years ago, I posted a link about NASA entering into a partnership with Arx Pax, inventor of hover engine technology, to develop a tractor beam, which have been a part of science fiction for decades. It seemed as if it was to become reality. I wanted to see how far they have come along, but the original link I posted to Arx Pax's website does not work any more. A search of NASA's website yields no results for 'Arx Pax'.
NASA is now starting a program Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan, to deal with the threat of near Earth objects (NEO). The program includes tasks for identifying NEOs and determining which ones might pose a danger to Earth. Its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) last year demonstrated that NASA can alter the trajectory of an asteroid. They plan to develop 'gravity tractors' but I haven't been able to find any research on this.
I did find an article on-line about a group at University of Colorado at Boulder that is working on a tractor beam in an effort to clean up space debris. There is a lot of space junk in orbit up there and collisions create more junk. They are basing their research on the Coulombe force, where objects of opposite charges attract each other, and objects with the same charge repel each other.
Read more about their research below:
https://www.universetoday.com/161783/researchers-are-working-on-a-tractor-beam-system-for-space/
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