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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
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Space Junk Removal Testing Craft Ejected From the ISS
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 22 2018, @02:30PM (1 child)
>My gut level guess is the ISS is so massive and large and low, that most things it could hit have been swept from orbit, unlike higher orbiting satellites, so this is a technology demonstrator for some kind of futuristic geosync assistant drone.
Absolutely - atmospheric drag is sufficient that the ISS needs to apply regular boosts to avoid de-orbitting - anything in similar orbits without such boosts (including 100% of space junk) will rapidly de-orbit.
Which is why this cleaning drone satellite includes its own much smaller cubesat "junk" to attempt to clean up - this is a proof of concept test, NOT an attempt to actually clean up the orbital space near the ISS.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday June 22 2018, @07:30PM
Oh cool also deployment from the ISS is safe because its so low that IF the experiment messes up, the remains of the experiment will naturally deorbit very fast.
I recall the ham radio suit-sat experiments where they shoved commo gear into surplus obsolete space suits on the ISS (the suit provides air pressure, cooling, some thermal insulation) then tossed them out the airlock and they orbited and worked for awhile... but re-entered pretty quickly.