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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the an-attractive-idea dept.

An ESA-funded scientist is developing a magnetic space tug to combat the growing problem of space debris. The tugs could lock onto derelict satellites and deorbit them before they become a hazard to navigation, and because they use cryogenic magnets, they wouldn't have to even touch the derelicts and the targets wouldn't need to be specially modified for towing.

Depending on how it's defined, there are over 500,000 pieces of debris or "space junk" orbiting the Earth, ranging in size from old launch vehicles and dead satellites down to flecks of paint. Because they travel at tens of thousands of miles per hour, even the smallest object can strike with the force of a meteor, and if a large one should hit a satellite, the impact could turn them both into deadly clouds of shrapnel.

Funded by ESA's Networking/Partnering Initiative, Emilien Fabacher of the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace at the University of Toulouse has come up with a system using magnetic fields generated by superconducting wires cooled to cryogenic temperatures. For his PhD research, he has been using a rendezvous simulator with magnetic interaction models to study how to guide, navigate, and control such tugs.

"With a satellite you want to deorbit, it's much better if you can stay at a safe distance, without needing to come into direct contact and risking damage to both chaser and target satellites," says Fabacher. "So the idea I'm investigating is to apply magnetic forces either to attract or repel the target satellite, to shift its orbit or deorbit it entirely."


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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:28PM (5 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:28PM (#532135) Journal

    Question: how much space junk is magnetic material? Seems like not a lot of iron, steel, or nickel in space bound stuff. Anyone have stats, or know where to get them?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:31PM (2 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:31PM (#532139) Journal

      In a fit of desperation, I RTFA:

      Low-Earth satellites are equipped with magnetorquers, which use the Earth's magnetic field to keep them oriented and prevent tumbling. The cryogenic magnets would be strong enough to use these magnetorquers like a built-in towing eye.

      OK, low earth satellites are covered, but random space junk? Expended rocket second stages? Paint flecks?

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:37PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:37PM (#532142)

      Beat me to the question. Magnetic materials are often heavy.

      Part of the answer is in TFA (sorry):

      Low-Earth satellites are equipped with magnetorquers, which use the Earth's magnetic field to keep them oriented and prevent tumbling.

      Okay ... magnetorquer what? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorquer [wikipedia.org]
      So, in tiny sats, those are magnets, but in bigger sats, they are electromagnets, and therefore would not be useful in dead ones.
      And thsoe are only useful in LEO, which is also where you need less cleanup because things only need a few years to find the way down.

      In summary, that sounds like an interesting academic exercise (like ... a PhD thesis?), but the practicality and ROI sound dubious.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 28 2017, @02:25PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday June 28 2017, @02:25PM (#532450) Journal

      Also, how much mass are we talking about? I have read there are thousands of bits of space debris, but don't know how big they are. If it's significant, perhaps it's worth re-collecting all of it and recycling it for use on space stations. If it's small, and only worth bothering about because it's shrapnel, then would it perhaps be more cost effective to develop force fields than to send out a garbage scow to chase down every bolt and chip of paint?

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:38PM (#532144)

    Don't stop tugging on my junk until my rocket deorbits.

  • (Score: 1) by diaz on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:55PM (3 children)

    by diaz (3491) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:55PM (#532155)

    Sounds familiar: short lived (1977-1978) show about space junk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(TV_series) [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:11PM (#532159)

      Thanks for something to binge watch tonight. God bless space pirates.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @11:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @11:20PM (#532184)
      There's also an anime on it, Planetes [anidb.net]
    • (Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Wednesday June 28 2017, @06:21AM

      by WalksOnDirt (5854) on Wednesday June 28 2017, @06:21AM (#532298) Journal

      Thanks for the reminder. Some episodes are now available on Youtube [youtube.com]. It seemed funnier back in 1977.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:31PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @10:31PM (#532173)

    Launching something up there is not workable. The energy requirement is absurd, the materials cost is absurd, and you'll only end up making more space junk as the garbage collector devices collide with stuff.

    Lasers work in multiple ways. You get light pressure, vaporization, and the thrust generated as bits of surface material boil off or explode off as ions.

    The place to install the lasers is where the power can be generated. Put a laser at each large power plant. (hydro, nuke, coal, natural gas... the usual)

    Consider the USA doing this. As a bit of debris rises over the west coast, all lasers on that coast fire at it. Continuing across the country, each laser begins firing as soon as the debris is suitably above the horizon.

    The use of multiple lasers is important. With a single laser, output power is limited by the air. Air molecules rip apart and generally mess with the beam. With numerous lasers, each can be below the limit. The only limit is some sort of quantum vacuum thing, which is quite a lot of power. Pulsing the lasers can be helpful. This reduces the amount wasted on heating a gas cloud. It is possible for an intense pulse to strip multiple electrons from each surface atom, causing the resulting ions to leave the surface with a good deal of energy. This gets you thrust, which will slow the object to deorbit it. It also does a fine job of vaporizing objects.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 27 2017, @11:40PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @11:40PM (#532191)

      The other reason to use multiple lasers spaced far apart is to only have the energy on the target, not on everything that passes behind it in the direction the laser is pointing at.
      I'm pretty sure the NRO would still object.

    • (Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday June 28 2017, @12:06AM

      by unauthorized (3776) on Wednesday June 28 2017, @12:06AM (#532203)

      The problem with blasting stuff from Earth is that you need a really damn accurate laser in order to avoid accelerating the object along the radial axis, which could increase it's reentry speed substantially or possibly even blast it into solar orbit. In order to slow down the object, you need to heat up the side that is facing in a direction opposite of it's current momentum. This is not a problem if your laser has a higher orbit than the junk piece, because you can aim your laser at it when it's moving towards the laser satellite.

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday June 28 2017, @02:13AM (2 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday June 28 2017, @02:13AM (#532242) Journal

    Put a satellite in orbit with generous solar panels and a proper laser. Then fire away. The problem is treaties to not militarize space. But considering it's a good for the commons in decreasing the likelihood of destroyed space equipment it's surely something that can be agreed on to have a exception to the rules.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 28 2017, @12:24PM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 28 2017, @12:24PM (#532393) Journal

      Ooops... was that yours? Sorry, I didn't mean to shot your Tiangong-2 station down, but it had a speck of paint on it; 'twas for the good of commons, you see?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday June 28 2017, @02:27PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday June 28 2017, @02:27PM (#532452) Journal

        I think detecting the difference between a space station and a paint speck is not rocket science..

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @07:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @07:56AM (#532325)
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