Indian Robot Will Capture Space Debris

CowboyRobot writes "India is set to launch the 'Space Robot', which, controlled from Earth, will capture damaged satellites and space debris. This seems a less ambitious, and more immediately practical venture than the current Mars missions."

Comments

Heh.

[ivan256]

It's nice to think of this as practical from the perspective of cleaning up space debris, but the real point of this is almost certainly for India to show that they have the ability to take out sattelites they don't like, much like the early Soviet and American sub-orbital flights and sattelite launches were demonstrations that we could drop explosive devices on each other from halfway around the world. Don't assume that something this complex and costly is being done out of the kindness of the Indian government's heard, or for the good of humanity when there's an obvious military benefit; especially considering their current cold war with Pakistan, and the technological escilation in China.

Re:Excellent application of ion engines

[zwanglos]

This doesn't really seem like a good application for ion engines. They are designed more for long distance deep space travel as they build speed very slowly.

This device will probably have more conventional thruster units that allow for high thrust and greater manueverability - especially if trying to catch objects that are no longer in orbit.

Here is a comparison of space engine capabilities: Engine Comparisons.