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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."
Somehow I doubt that the US didn't have the robotic technology... I imagine a seasons worth of battlebots constructors could handle this task.
In fact, that confirms it. I think any of the spinner bots would work...
Sig under construction since 1998.
The 'Space Robot' (SR), with an in-built 'RUDAC' communication signal processor, will be used to capture damaged satellites and space debris from crashing to Earth, CSRDC-CSRL and ISRDO Director Dr M Sreedhar Dayal told UNI.
Putting aside the poor translation, it's clear that the article's writer doesn't have much of a scientific background. Unless you're talking about a mass comparable to the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory or perhaps the Hubble, there's not much need to prevent debris from "crashing into the earth". 100,000 feet of atmosphere does a fine job by itself, and puts on a great light show to boot.
The obvious benefit of this space scoop is to clear NEO of the sort of debris that occasionally causes the ISS and the Shuttle to take evasive maneuvers from time to time.
But I know what I'd be interested in, if I were a developing nation with orbital capability. The space around Earth is turning into the next big salvage yard, especially if the costs of this mission are comparable to a high-profile terrestrial salvage operation. What better way to find out what other nations have been doing in the space above your country, than to grab a few samples of their equipment?
It's even better than a earthbound salvage operation, because there's no weathering beyond radiation and collisions with other pieces of debris. A defunct spy satellite would be in as good a condition now as it was the day it entered orbit, especially in terms of reverse-engineering. The chips may have a few bits shorted out, but the circuit boards, wiring harnesses, optics, propulsion systems, and so on could hold a trove of information.
And there's one thing I'm dying to do -- buy space knicknacks. NASA and the Russians could probably fund a significant space program by simply selling off that ton or so of "trash" brought back by each shuttle mission or burnt up in the used Progress craft. If India can bring back space nuts, old thruster bells, and the like, they could make a killing on eBay!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
There's a theory that if there's enough space-junk that you could develope a chain reaction where one peice of junk shatters another, and really quickly you end up with a bunch of miniscule but deadly debris that will make space exploration almost impossible.
Thanks India!
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
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.
Ion engines would be well suited to this application. Their high specific impulse means they could have the fuel reserves needed to change orbits multiple times to catch debris. Solar power, instead of a nuclear power source, could provide the electricity to run the engine.
Hmmm... figuring out the optimal set of manuveurs to catch a set of debris objects that are all in different orbits would be very tricky. I guess that would have to be called the Traveling Spaceman Problem.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This sounds like a precursor to Planet-es. It's a very well written anime (even from a Hard Sci-fi POV)
Maybe they could bring the Hubble back for a 10th the cost.......?
Even if they only got a 10th of it for us, we could put it in the Smithsonian.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
If the robot could capture the debris, and put it all in some kind of framework, a 'junk warehouse' if you will.. It could be a fantastic way to aquire raw material in orbit without having to pay much of the shipping cost.
Maybe it is worth comparing the design of this robot to the Indian one. It was discussed in this slashdot thread entitled Inspection Microsat Tested In Orbit.
spanner n.
1. A wrench having a hook, hole, or pin at the end for meshing with a related device on another object.
2. Chiefly British. A wrench.