NASA To Build Laser Space Broom For ISS

Andy_R writes: "The BBC is reporting that NASA is to build a laser "broom" that is designed to sweep debris in space away from the path of the International Space Station." It's being tested - the plan is to destroy debris between one to ten centimeters in length.

Comments

Must be quite a laser

[John Jorsett]

So, they're going to blast space junk into even more pieces? Or do they seriously think that they can turn them into vapor? If so, the pulse duration of the beam is going to have to be extremely short and put a lot of energy into the debris, or else the thing will ablate where the beam strikes it and the outgassing will scoot it out of the way. I didn't know we were close to having space-born lasers that could do that on a repetitive basis.

Re:Must be quite a laser

[Once&FutureRocketman]

where the beam strikes it and the outgassing will scoot it out of the way

Actually, I suspect that this is exactly what they have in mind. They're trying to protect a single target, not clean up orbit with this thing.
The power requirements to vaporize a sheet of aluminum 10 cm square through the atmosphere is quite beyond our present technology.

Re:Only down to 1cm?

[Bill Currie]

very true, but odds are the impact velocity will be much less than 18000mph as most objects are orbiting in the same direction, so the relative velocity will be much less (but increasing with angle of incedence and ecentricity). However, for objects with opposing orbits, 36000mph is more likely, and thus more deadly; in which case, you're hosed.

Bill - aka taniwha
--

Almost as good as the Super-Mop

[gad_zuki!]

You'd think with all the time and effort they've put in they could have come up with a better name than "Space Broom." Sounds like a badly translated anime Villian.

1 - 10 centimeters!

[small_dick]

keep that thing away from my...well, you figure it out.

Crap, never mind... read the last paragraph.

[torpor]

Sorry mods, waste of space... I just read the last paragraph, where it says it won't actually *do* any blasting of objects, only tracking.

In which case, this whole article here on Slashdot is misleading. It's not a *broom*, its just a debris tracking system that uses lasers...

Probably Johnny Astronaut is still going to have to go out there and sweep up, the difference is there is a set of lasers on the ground keeping an eye on his work...

Re:Crap, never mind... read the last paragraph.

[neopenguin]

well, if you read it again, I think you'll find that it says that the upcoming test won't use lasers that can blast anything... but that the operational system most certainly would.

I wouldn't categorize this so much as a debris tracking system as a test of a debris targeting system which is an another animal entirely.

Re:Suddenly 30,000 times cooler...

[styopa]

Actually we have had lasers that can damage, if not destroy, other countries satilites for more than a year.

There is one of these in Arizona, it was tested last year to see if it could hit a sensor so that NASA could record some info. They used the lowest setting that they knew would reach the satilite and it destroyed the sensor.

As for lasers in space. There is an international treaty that was originally constructed and signed by the US, CCCP, and China that bans laser weapons in space. So NASA could not construct a deathstar with lasers without breaking international treaty. Particle weapons and rail guns, on the other hand, I believe are still viable options.

Re:Weapons treaty to change?

[styopa]

I seriously doubt that the technology to produce high-power laser that is focused enough to take out 10cm metal/ceramic targets in orbit exists today.

Actually there is a ground based laser system in Arizona that can do just that. It was tested sometime last year.

How having a ground based laser system effects the treaty about not allowing laser weapons in space is something I would like to know.

Ground based vs moving object in orbit

[RollingThunder]

Are they planning on scattering these all over the globe? The ISS won't sit in a geosync orbit, as I understand... that means needing lasers all over the place.

Sounds like they just want to justify funding....

[Dr. Zed]

There's some rather faulty logic going on with the general concept. I'm not saying that the idea wouldn't work, but it is rather a bit of overkill. Using a ground-based laser to punch through the atmosphere in order to deflect a piece of debris doesn't make sense when there would be much cheaper alternatives.

One, if nothings else, it could be station-based. That would mean that the laser wouldn't need the power to clear the atmosphere, and it would make targeting a lot easier (there's a very low relative speed for a target approaching you).

Two, since this whole process involves tracking and eliminating a known threat (and therefore preperation time would be in weeks/months/etc. and not minutes), the same level of protection could be achieved simply by using the station's robotic arm to place protective panels where they would deflect the known incomming debris.

The surface-to-space kill-o-zap device would be reduced to a simple catcher's mit (which sounds a lot cooler than a broom), although it should shouldn't actually "catch" the debris (unless very small), but instead deflect, which is easier.

The device mentioned in the artical would not be able to deflect anything with a decent amount of mass. Anything that a ground-based laser could "deflect" could just as easily be deflected by a physical barrier.

Mind you, I'm guessing that they want the funding for their toy and they also want the "hype" to bolster support for a declining NASA.

Now, regarding some rather odd comments in the parent post....:

First, it's ground-based. They are not putting it on the station.

Second, .... what if something goes wrong? Please, they would have to go through great effort to actually hit something in space. The odds of them not only missing, but hitting something that would be miles away..... it's not as if they are going to wait until it's a few hundred feet from the station.

Third... a puncture in the station would cause an air leak, not a major incident. I'm not saying some 5 cent piece of chewing gum would fix the leak. This is NASA. Some 50 dollar piece of chewing gum would be used to fix it.

Re:Ground based laser?!Ahh..Airforce project :)

[Legolas-Greenleaf]

hopefully the airspace between the ground laser and the space station will classified as restricted. i'd hate to be flying my little cessna over it when the space station needs some help. ;^)

of course, that would be an interesting addition to the next version of ms flight sim...
-legolas

i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...

I need a laser broom for my workshop

[anticypher]

Man, just think of how fast I could clean up with one of those. Hurry up NASA, you've finally created a useful bit of technology! :-)

the AC

This brings new meaning...

[angst_ridden_hipster]

... to the term "Vacuum cleaner."

But seriously, this has been just one of many proposals for clearing space junk. There's foam shields, thermal reflectors, lasers, armor, reactive panels, and, my favorite, luck.
-
bukra fil mish mish
-
Monitor the Web, or Track your site!

Re:This brings new meaning...

[Glytch]

/. nees a (+1, Horribly Painful Groaner) setting. Nice one. :)

Re:This brings new meaning...

[Ross C. Brackett]

Since a vacuum doesn't work in another vacuum, could you use an anti-vacuum, i.e. "decompress the cargo bay, Mr. Data" to force debris away from the ship?

Although, I shouldn't complain, self-guided lazers frying pieces of space junk could be pretty awesome. Imagine an incoming meteor shower - I can just see it picking the little guys off one a second. That's how I want my taxpayer dollars spent!

Nice cover story

[An Onerous Coward]

However, we all know that the real purpose of this project is to protect Earth from the fleets of Xaxxis, the evil interstellar commander.

The Air Force will most likely be borrowing it on weekends to fight off bug-eyed repo men who want to get a hold of the Roswell wreckage. I had very good sources for all of this information, but they're being mysteriously killed off one at a URK!!!

Re:Nice cover story

[Money__]

but we all know it's to protect us from those pissed off martians who keep getting probes bounced off their pointey little heads.

Only down to 1cm?

[Bill Currie]

Isn't that a little large? Or can the station handle anything smaller than that without too much trouble?. A 9mm hole is still 9mm (and would probably be bigger due to cratering) which would allow a fair bit of air through (especially if there's two of them).

Hmm, maybe it's 1cm because that's what they can currently track. Still, an excellent idea :)

Bill - aka taniwha
--

Re:Only down to 1cm?

[stubob]

that must be the effective vaccuum-sealing size of duct tape (as determined in a multimillion dollar test by NASA).

come to think of it, you probably wouldn't need adhesive at all, just a new piece of metal and stick it to the wall and let air pressure hold it in place. now there's a headline: "Space Station rams satellite, astronauts stuck to the wall."

-----

Key word might be "Broom"

[Greyfox]

Using lasers as a propolusion method turns up from time to time in sci-fi. Something about the mass of the photons being enough to give a craft a "push." Perhaps this system will simply push the aforementioned debris elsewhere.

Why launch MORE junk?

[cgifool]

Trials of the system are due to start in 2003. The US space shuttle will launch dummy targets of a similar size, and a laser back on Earth will attempt to lock on to them.

I don't understand, there's TONS of junk already up there that they're tracking all the time. Why release MORE of it to test with??

Re:Spacegoing Glomar Explorer

[jonnythan]

Yeltsin?? Yeltsin isn't in power anywhere anymore, man....

We could just use tire sealant instead...

[Mike Buddha]

We could just spray a couple cans of instant tire sealant into the space station instead. If one of these space debris happens to hit it, it'll seal up like a Goodyear Eagle! That stuff was developed by NASA anyways, wasn't it?

Overkill... reminds me of a joke...

[jw3]

I remember an old joke. The astronauts found that the ball-pens do not work in no-gravity conditions, obviously. NASA started a multimilion dollar research work on no-g pens, and a couple of years later came up with a special, $1000 pen which worked almost perfectly even on the orbit. It later became widely available as an expensive gadget.

The Russians, however, when faced with the same problem, started using pencils.

Best regards,

January

Because real junk is too reflective? :-)

[Morgaine]

Just kidding ... I hope.

But it does raise a real question: given that quite a lot of space debris will probably be reflective simply because space equipment is quite often reflective in order not to absorb heat from the sun, how is this laser going to deal with it?

The most likely outcome of this seems to be that the space station's sensors are going to be burned out because of unwanted reflections from the targetted junk.

Broom .. . lol

[Money__]

Leave it to the US 'gubment to use a term like broom to refer to a spaced station based, highly focused beem of energy with enough power to send sputnic to a firey death at the end of a decaying orbit.

This from the same people who call the shipyard in Groton, CT that makes the stelthy nuclear powered submarines that carry dozens of intercontinental balistic missiles that can rain down multiple independant warheads on nearly any city in the world with less than 1 hours notice . . .the electric boat division.

How does it work, Mr. Wizard?

[code_rage]

The BBC article does not say how it works. Although vaporizing debris might seem like a good idea, a little calculation shows that the energy requirements for this are HUGE. Do a little calorimetry on melting a steel bolt. I haven't done the calculations but it's gotta be pretty daunting. (Where's that CRC handbook when I need it?)

A few months ago I heard of a proposal by The Aerospace Corp to use lasers for just this purpose. The idea was to generate light pressure on debris objects to cause orbital decay, not to disintegrate them. The experiment mentioned by the BBC is likely a feasibility demonstration.

What about Mir?

[zzen]

This sounds like very interesting technology. It also sounds as an inevitable one -- that is if you want to stay up there for a bit longer.

Just one thing is on my mind: "How the hell did the Russians do it?" I am not aware of them having a space laser broom for the last 20 years. Yet Mir has been up there for a long long time and it isn't much smaller then ISS today.

You don't want to tell me it's because the Russians are more lucky, do you?

Re:What about Mir?

[Claudius]

Just one thing is on my mind: "How the hell did the Russians do it?"

The Russians, who are the world experts on long-duration space flight, simply relied on their cosmonauts' being able to scurry into a Soyez capsule in the event of a hull breach. Unless the breach were catastrophic, e.g. impact with a large piece of junk, the crew would have many minutes before the cabin would become uninhabitable. This indeed happened in recent times, though not from impact with space debris or meteorites. During the Shuttle-Mir program Tsibliev, the Russian cosmonaut/commander, inadvertantly rammed an unmanned supply vessel into Mir and punctured the hull of the space station. Tsibliev has since been cleared of wrongdoing in the collision since Energia (the private company who runs Mir) and their systems were ultimately at fault, but he and Latzukin, the other cosmonaut on board at the time, will probably never return to space--in the Russian program you don't make Energia look bad and then expect to collect your bonuses or see time in the sky. Michael Foale was the NASA astronaut on Mir at the time. Apparently, as Foale has commented subsequent to his mission, having one's ears pop from a hull breach can really ruin one's day.

The collision, depressurization, and subsequent risky EVAs (even an intra-vehicular activity where astronauts moved through the depressurized cabin to restore the science component of Mir and diagnose the breach) caused much concern among NASA for the safety of the astronaut and cosmonauts on board. It should come as no surprise that the international community wants a system for averting such emergencies on the ISS.

You don't want to tell me it's because the Russians are more lucky, do you?

No, but cultural differences exist in how we and they approach space flight. In short, we think they are reckless, and they think we are wusses. In many ways their cosmonauts are more flexible than our astronauts. We train our astronauts six ways until Sunday to do precisely what we want them to do in space, and almost without fail they do it. The Russians have less reliance on specifics, but they have a wealth of experience forming contingencies and repairing broken stuff. Space stations suffer breakdowns, and the ISS will be no different. The Russians cosmonauts and ground support personnel, with their experience keeping Mir up in the sky for so long, will prove to be valuable partners in the ISS program.

What's on Deck 10?

[TekPolitik]

This is a ground-based system that can locate and destroy or divert these fragments.

Just don't let anybody from Microsoft within a parsec of that thing - the last thing we need is for the Borg to get access to deflector control.

Dr. Evil

[Glytch]

This article should have been from the alan-parsons-project department.

Another idea stolen from Star Trek

[thogard]

This is just like that funky dish on the front of the Enterpirse is for--it sweeps stuff out of the way.

Can't NASA come up with any of their own ideas?

This is a Good Thing

[carlhirsch]

Orbital debris is the probably the single greatest hazard for any planned satellite or space station. Something like this will make sustained development of orbital frontiers much more feasible.

I'm getting antsy to see us (globally, not in a U.S.ian sense) put more send more platforms up the gravity well. All of the more realistic proposals for interstellar/interplanetary travel involve orbital construction.

And again, I think that sustainable development is key. What's the orbital equivalent of ecology? Vacuumology? La Grange-ology?

-carl

Suddenly 30,000 times cooler...

[MythoBeast]

Ten centimeters? Do you realize that this means we can shoot other people's satilites out of orbit? Cool! Unfortunately, even a laser beam would spread out over several feet when shot from the ground - it would be REALLY neat if they could have one of those suckers mounted on the space station itself. It's the NASA deathstar!

Mythological Beast

Re:Suddenly 30,000 times cooler...

[pantherace]

The earth has the atmoshere to burn up debris. It is also will not have anything that will explode, except maybe the metiorite itself. The space station on the other hand could be coliding with these particles can rupture the skin. Space is a very low pressure environment. What happens when a high pressure container ruptures in a low pressure environment. That assumes that the station survives. KE=v^2*m (KE kenetic energy, v velocity, m mass) assume that it goes 5 miles/second (~8km/sec) which results in a very high force. a space craft 2m long is *obliterated* by a 1 cm plastic particle traveling @ 5 miles/second. imagine that particle hitting the ISS. Likely causing a MAJOR problem, or destroying it, possibly causing a chain of sattelite destruction, resulting in a loss of the ability to use sattelites at all.

Weapons treaty to change?

[liquidgrrl]

I fail to understand how this system will get past the international weapons treaty mentioned in the article. It states that it "is a ground-based system that can locate and destroy or divert these fragments." However, the system trials planned for 2003 "will not involve lasers with sufficient power to affect the debris, as there are concerns that such high power devices might contravene the international weapons treaty banning laser weapons in space."

Do they expect the treaty to be altered in time for the system's official launch? Is NASA expecting that the space station will acquire significant puplic importance, sufficient to overcome the general fear of 'space lasers' that initially birthed the treaty?

Waaay to inefficient

[esonik]

They better send out Roger Wilco...

More articles

[code_rage]

Here are some additional articles with some more details:

The New Scientist article
Marshall Space Flight Center PDF file

Ecology, -ology...

[Speare]

What's the orbital equivalent of ecology? Vacuumology? La Grange-ology?

My first thought would be astrology, but that's already taken.

Now that would make a cool cleaning appliance

[Idaho]

Just think of it: using such a thing to clean your room. No more need fore stupid AI vacuum cleaners that can let you stumble over it.

Add a smoke generator, and you get an impressive laser show, too :-)

General Question.

[bagel2ooo]

Nopefully this isn't too naive a question but wouldn't this laser broom cause some trouble if it ran across larger debris? Possibly break it into smaller chunks and cause it to hit other satellites?

ISS Laser?

[griffjon]

I first read that topic and throught, "whoa--Internet Security Systems is getting reallllly serious about proactive security..."

I'm too deep in this all.

Ground based laser?!Ahh..Airforce project :)

[efuseekay]

They are going to use a ground-based laser to shoot em down. Whoa.

Looks like either
(a) SDI has managed to hide a key development as "civilian"
OR
(b) NASA is clever and manage to get AirForce funding on essential technologies.

Make your pick.

How does this affect ban on Star Wars Tech?

[torpor]

Does anyone have any details on how this is legal under the strategic space arms ban treaty that was signed between the US and Russia a few years ago?

It would seem to me that there'd be very little to prevent this technology from being used as a counter-measure against enemy satellite systems, at least at face value.

So I'm curious if there is some way this is being allowed under the terms of the treaty. Anyone with better understanding of it care to comment?