The research project called RemoveDEBRIS is
an effort to test various space junk removal technologies. The project, which involves a 220-pound satellite in low Earth orbit, is being led by the University of Surrey
In its third test, the project successfully snatched a piece of debris using its space harpoon. The harpoon shot out at 65 feet per second/20 meters per second (0.0007% of the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum) its space-harpoon-claws successfully digging into the target and gaining a firm lock.
Previously, the satellite deployed a net to capture a simulated piece of space junk, and a laser-based camera system was used to locate a floating chunk of space debris. A fourth and final experiment will be conducted in March, when the satellite will pump the brakes by deploying a small sail.
At this point the satellite, and its low orbit loot, will plunge to Earth to burn up in the atmosphere.
The U.S. Space Surveillance Network estimates that around 29,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters are currently floating in Earth orbit, some at speeds approaching 10 kilometers per second, or 6 miles per second.
These bits and bobs can smash into other items in orbit creating even more debris in a cascading Earth enveloping satellite and astronaut destroying shower of doom referred to as the Kessler syndrome, named after Donald J. Kessler who first proposed it in 1978.
Lunar orbit is looking like a better place to be.
Previous Coverage: SpaceX Launches CRS-14 Resupply Mission to the ISS and Space Junk Removal Testing Craft Ejected From the ISS
Related Stories
SpaceX has launched CRS-14 to the International Space Station (ISS) using a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster and Dragon capsule. This is the second time that both a flight-proven F9 (from CRS-12) and Dragon (from CRS-8) have been used.
The mission is carrying RemoveDebris, which will test technologies for removing space debris (simulated using two CubeSats) from orbit using a harpoon, net, and dragsail.
The Atmosphere-Space Interaction Monitor (ASIM) is a European Space Agency project to add cameras and sensors to the ISS that will search the upper atmosphere for phenomena such as sprites, jets, and elves, and gamma-ray flashes caused by thunderstorms.
NASA, Tupperware Brands, and Techshot Inc. developed an upgraded system for growing plants in the ISS's "Veggie" facility. The semi-hydroponic Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System (PONDS) will ensure that plants (red romaine lettuce, and Mizuna) get just the amount of water that they need. The system is expected to grow tomatoes and peppers in the future.
Material International Space Station Experiments (MISSE) will allow materials experiments to be placed on the outside of the space station, exposed to radiation, temperature swings, and the vacuum of space, serviceable by a robotic arm.
Astronauts eject UK-led space junk demo mission
A UK-led project to showcase methods to tackle space junk has just been pushed out of the International Space Station.
The RemoveDebris satellite was ejected a short while ago with the help of a robotic arm.
The 100kg craft, built in Guildford, has a net and a harpoon.
These are just two of the multiple ideas currently being considered to snare rogue hardware, some 7,500 tonnes of which is now said to be circling the planet.
Previously: SpaceX Launches CRS-14 Resupply Mission to the ISS
In recent years, the odds of orbital collisions has doubled due to all the debris, large particles, and just plain scrap flying around in orbit. These are fragments left from launches as well as from collisions between other objects already in orbit. The Economist is reporting that several methods for de-oribiting space junk are being tested, with the goal to get a handle on the problem while there is still time to do so. So far, nets, harpoons, and magnets are among the options which have been considered.
In the first test, the servicer will use springs to push the pod out and then, once it is ten metres away, will approach it again, lock onto the docking plate using an arm fitted with a magnetic head, retract the arm and pull it back to the servicer. For the second test, it will push the pod at least 100 metres away before its starts approaching it. A reaction wheel and a set of magnetic torque-generators will then put the pod into a tumble involving all three axes of motion, at a speed of half a degree a second.
This is, as it were, an important twist—for chunks of orbiting debris typically spin in this fashion. A real deorbiting mission will therefore have to deal with such spinning objects. Markings on the pod will help the servicer work out its prey’s motion. Using eight thrusters, it will manoeuvre itself until those markings appear, to its sensors, to be stationary. This will mean its motion exactly matches that of the tumbling pod, and that the magnetic head can therefore be extended to do its job.
For the third capture test, the servicer will first use its thrusters to back off several kilometres from the pod, putting the pod beyond sensor range. Then it will search for it, as would need to be the case if it were hunting for a real derelict spacecraft.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:23AM (7 children)
All these satellites, stages, wrenches, nuts, bolts and flakes of paint fly on unique orbits, with different speeds. The satellite won't be able to match orbit/speed with more than one or two targets. This means that we have to launch a satellite to each target and hope that it has enough fuel to reach another. We'd need thousands of launches.
One day our space vehicles will have enough energy to change orbits many times before returning to base, and this method will clean the near-Earth space. Today we just hope that the junk eventually burns up in the atmosphere.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:46AM (2 children)
Aren't we already lasering the crap out of the universe with our current crop of telescopes? Those are perfect for locking onto things in orbit any way. Amp'em up a bit and blast the stuff!
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:48AM (1 child)
That could make it take longer to deorbit. What you want is a tractor beam.
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(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:08AM
When you laze them bits start vaporizing leading to random propulsion from out-gassing. Probably anybody's guess what would happen then. The solution seems to be a bigger laser.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:58AM (3 children)
I disagree. It would be better to make one large vehicle, with lots of fuel. Leave it up there, permanently. Give it a refueling capability, so that someone like SpaceX can fuel it up when needed. Let it wander around, collecting debris, one little bit at a time if necessary. When it can't haul anymore (cubic volume capacity, or the mass becomes inefficient for the engines) find a stable orbit to unload it all. Go back to collecting, and bring the next load back to the same spot. Use a net to keep it all contained? Or a huge garbage bag? Some details need to be worked out, but parking all the trash in a common junk yard would make orbital space much safer.
The major advantage is, all that stuff is available. Can't expect anything to be useful, as is, really, but you have lots of raw materials for 3D printers, or whatever else can be dreamed up. It cost a lot of money to get all that crap up there - why just burn it up?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 16 2019, @05:22AM
If we're going to use rocket fuel to grab this junk, we have to use a fully reusable rocket. Welcome BFR, which is supposed to be able to refuel in-orbit. Can it hit enough targets on one tank of fuel to be worth a $10 million price tag? Depends on how much you want that stuff gone.
Actually, ion engines are probably a better idea. Solar power with on-board propellant is more efficient. Slow, but you are just playing a game of orbits. And maybe you can send multiple such craft into different starting orbits with one BFR launch.
We would probably want to focus on the largest pieces of junk, which might actually be useful... somehow. There may be a certain population of debris that is more obstructive to launches. Perhaps the debris is clogging a certain useful orbit (polar, etc.) and is relatively close to Earth but will still take decades or centuries to decay naturally.
If we had EmDrive, that would be perfect. Like ion engines but better. Too bad it's probably fake.
How about this option: a laser array in a higher orbit that uses solar panels to charge and deorbits junk from above. You don't get to reuse the junk, but it would be most effective on stuff like paint flecks anyway.
Where to put the junk if you capture but don't deorbit it? Likely an orbiting space station (on the Moon you can mine things instead). I'm not sure how you would make it useful. Having some kind of a furnace in space melting stuff together would be pretty weird, and possibly difficult and dangerous. Assembling structures directly out of the space junk probably isn't doable unless you're a Reaver.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Saturday February 16 2019, @06:13AM
I wonder what would happen if you worked out the largest mass that the BFR could lift to 1000km straight up, no orbit burn, just lift and fall. Then get a tank of argon that big, and loft it up. As soon as the BFR stops firing and you hit 150km high you open valves around the tank and start it spinning. A large diffuse pancake shape cloud of argon is going to rise to 1000 km and then fall back to zero. Any space junk that goes through it is going to lose speed. Doesn't matter what orbit the junk was on, if it hits the cloud it will lose energy and fall into a lower and faster orbit and be much closer to burning up.
Would be most effective on the tiny stuff and low orbit stuff but that's where most of the junk is. If you timed it right it would have minimal effect on large satellites.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @11:26AM
Runaway1956, emphasis on the 1956, Space Engineer! It's just like
For certain values of "back home".
But let me guess, you do not know which ones? Oh, poor Engineer Runaway1965! We will call you. Don't call us.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jasassin on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:44AM (2 children)
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jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 16 2019, @05:07AM
*starts reading*
*starts reading again*
*stops reading*
WTF? My guess is blackout drunk, which could allow you to type surprisingly coherently but still end up looking like something OpenAI's algorithm spit out.
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(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday February 16 2019, @06:38AM
Sorry my android keyboard shit itself. Just saw what happened. WTF?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @05:19AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by patrick on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:39PM
The 1st minute of the opening scene to the anime for Planetes [youtube.com] is the most concise & powerful visual example of this problem that I've seen. I think about it every time someone mentions space debris.
(It's a much more realistic and probable example than the Kessler syndrome shown in the movie Gravity.)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday February 16 2019, @05:33AM
For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by slap on Saturday February 16 2019, @09:19AM (1 child)
It is a *STUPID* idea to use a harpoon - think of the small fragments that will be created when the harpoon hits - the sort of thing that we don't need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @11:33AM
But when it goes into the soft and blubbery flesh of the White Whale, Aye! Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Have ye not seen the White Whale! All hands to the boats! All harponeers on stand! We will take down this Iridium trash once and for all!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Saturday February 16 2019, @12:39PM
Just need a satellite armed with a gauss rifle that can acquires targets, determines mass, and appropriate trajectory to ensure both projectile and debris will enter atmosphere or be ejected while keeping the satellite in orbit. Bonus points if you can get the projectile to orbit back into the satellite to be fired again, or use the recoil to move the satellite to next target.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @02:36PM (1 child)
Don't make more trash.
That's a high bar for space trash collection.
(Score: 2) by Kalas on Saturday February 16 2019, @07:01PM
Yeah, while seeing "SPACE HARPOONS" instantly got my interest, the second thought was that this will make significant debris most of the time at least.
I wonder if laser tech is about good enough we could send one up powerful enough to entirely vaporize small debris near its orbit. I know we've been able to shoot down missiles with them for quite some time but who knows if that can be made feasible in something we can launch into orbit yet. Getting a suitably small power supply and adequate cooling would seem to be the biggest obstacles.
Or hell, maybe I'm envisioning this all wrong and a laser would be just as bad for making more debris.