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http://theconversation.com/space-debris-what-can-we-do-with-unwanted-satellites-40736
There are thousands of satellites in Earth orbit, of varying age and usefulness. At some point they reach the end of their lives, at which point they become floating junk. What do we do with them then?
Most satellites are not designed with the end of their life in mind. But some are designed to be serviced, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, which as part of its final service was modified to include a soft capture mechanism. This is an interface designed to allow a future robotic spacecraft to attach itself and guide the telescope to safe disposal through burn-up in the Earth’s atmosphere once its operational life has ended.
Thinking about methods to retire satellites is important, because without proper disposal they become another source of space debris – fragments of old spacecraft, satellites and rockets now orbiting Earth at thousands of miles per hour. These fragments travel so fast that even a piece the size of a coin has enough energy to disable a whole satellite. There are well over 100,000 pieces this size or larger already orbiting Earth, never mind much larger items – for example the Progress unmanned cargo module, which Russian Space Agency mission controllers have lost control of and which will orbit progressively lower until it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday May 02 2015, @06:11PM
Setup a satellite with a robotic arm that can collect and either throw satellites into instant de-orbit or collect the junk for the next level of modding. After all, when you at great expense got such precious material in orbit. Why not make use of it instead of de-orbiting it?
Fuel for thrusters can perhaps be siphoned from unused satellites?
Hitting a moving target inside the orbiting lanes will be a challenge. But that can probably be solved.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday May 02 2015, @07:12PM
If unused satellites had any fuel left we wouldn't have these problems. They could de-orbit themselves.
Chasing satellites is super expensive and tossing them also tosses your tosser. Tricky business.
But small(ish) single use satellite tugs (with harpoons or nets maybe) could be a solution for the older booster and dead satellites where no de-orbit planning was done.
But I doubt it is the large intact satellites that are the problem here, its the little pieces that present the risk to everything else. And that suggests trying to re-use the metal from dead sattelites in space is going to present more problems than de-orbit. Even random de-orbit lands in the ocean 70 percent of the time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Sunday May 03 2015, @12:03PM
What you need is a "tar baby"...remember the old story about the rabbit getting stuck in the tar baby and being unable to escape? The problem with the debris isn't the whole dead sats, those are easy enough to keep up with and move with one of several methods, its the billions of small pieces of crap [craphound.com], everything from lost gloves to pieces of paint from boosters, all these little pieces zipping at such insane speed is like a billion bullets just waiting to rip into the good sats and trash them.
So what you need to get all these billions of pieces that are too small for a targeted mission is something more "out of the box"....tar baby. A blob of absorbent material that can take these hits and just absorb them until its too filled with pieces of crap to hold any more, at which time either let its now increased weight drag it down or perhaps use a small rocket to speed its descent.
But if we go with using targeted missions for each and every piece, even if we just go after the largest ones? It would take tens, possibly hundreds of billions and several decades. Compare this to the tar baby, I'm sure the guys at 3M can come up with a thick enough foam substance to do the job and depending on the size of the blob you create? It could suck up thousands of pieces of little pieces of space crap.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:23PM
Yes, but we better use the term Orbital Quick Sand, because there are a lot of touchy people [wikipedia.org] out there.
The problem here is the only orbit that will bring you close enough to gather bits of space junk is the exact opposite orbit of said junk, which makes the closing speed horrific. You can't orbit hop up and down trying to rendezvous with every pyrotechnic bolt head or bag of poop.
This is also why there have been so few impacts, and why impacts that have happened are at relatively slow speeds. Every thing in the same orbit is going the same speed.
True, a more elliptical orbit or one at a slightly different angle would cross, and you might be able to use that to your advantage with you quick sand baby.
Considering all the brilliant minds in the space programs of several countries, I find it amazing nobody foresaw this problem.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:14AM
We are foreseeing the destruction of the planet. And still continue..
It's all about human behavior and organizational builtin properties. Most people perhaps isn't built to handle unforgiving environments.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:42AM
True, I'm sure the early pioneers had no means to force reentry, and ignored it because space is the big empty.
They knew in the back of their mind that there was a problem, but skipped it for their current project. That became habit.
It really was a self solving problem in the early days.
We see the, and largely have moved to correct for the "destruction of the planet" (which by the way, is entirely beyond man's capability, regardless of how many dystopian movies are made about it). Deforestation, polluted rivers, smog, litter, etc, are all problems that have been seen and are being addressed, rather successfully for the most part. CO2 is being worked on as we speak.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday May 02 2015, @07:49PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 02 2015, @08:56PM
Regarding fuel. One may have to send up some station with a lot of kamikaze (small) robots and make use of smart navigation and time instead of gigantic fuel supplies. Perhaps solar sails can be used?
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday May 02 2015, @09:34PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:04AM
I'll guess the limiting factor will be the fuel and cost. The amount of micro amounts of fuel has to be enough to push the object with enough energy to de-orbit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 02 2015, @11:44PM
Your thoughts are similar to my own. We went to great expense to get all that stuff up there. It would be great if we could just boost that scrap yard up a little higher, and park it in a more stable orbit. Maybe 3/4 or more of it is useless to us today, but in 20 or 50 years, the salvage rights could be invaluable. I can visualize a team picking over the boneyard for scraps of titanium to be machined into some little widget. Or - forget machining old parts into new, just find a half ton of aluminum to be melted down and recast into new stuff. Even plastics are pretty valuable, all things considered. Most plastics can be chopped up, melted, and formed into new shapes.
We've been told that there are a lot of advantages to zero G factories. Park all that junk where future factories can easily access it!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday May 03 2015, @02:16AM
Insightful... up in space, there is no atmosphere to oxidize your stuff and no gravity to pull it apart.
I keep envisioning a big concave mirror which is mostly mylar foil arranged like a solar sail, which is temporarily deployed at the salvage site. You put your "useless" stuff at the focal point, its heated to melting point, and becomes a sphere due to surface tension. ( Idea shamelessly copied from Jack Vance, short story, "Sail 25" [technovelgy.com] )
Or, while its hot, extrude it to more usable forms. "Angle iron" for instance. Or maybe fasteners.
You may not need to worry about substantial supports, as there is no gravity trying to bend your freshly extruded material - you just push it out of the focal point so it "blackbody" radiates its heat, dropping its temperature drops below melting, and you are back to solid rod, bar, or whatever.
You may end up with "slag" as well, the end product of things like insulation, epoxy, glass, and the like. I do not know what it could be used for... can it be molten and foamed to make a pumice-like thermal insulation material?
What I do not know.. will these metals sublimate when melted in vacuum and all you get is gaseous metal?
I know nothing about "pollution" of space by releasing gaseous byproducts of decomposition. Will these gases return to Earth and be re-absorbed by natural cycles as earthly gases are? Or will they remain in place, offering drag to other satellites?
I do not think this is a simple question and deserves substantial research.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by deadstick on Sunday May 03 2015, @12:51AM
Fuel for thrusters can perhaps be siphoned
You really want a different verb...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:16AM
Your suggestion?