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Shiny New Space Fence To Monitor Orbiting Junk

Posted by samzenpus on from the good-space-fences-make-good-neighbors dept.

coondoggie writes "Some work has begun on tracking and detecting the overabundance of space junk which has become a growing priority as all manner of satellites, rockets and possible commercial space shots are promised in the coming few years. Today Northrop Grumman said it grabbed $30 million from the US Air Force to start developing the first phase of a global space surveillance ground radar system. The new S-Band Space Fence is part of the Department of Defense's effort to detect and track what are known as resident space objects (RSO), consisting of thousands of pieces of space debris as well as commercial and military satellites. The new Space Fence will replace the current VHF Air Force Space Surveillance System built in 1961."

4 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Deorbit by vrmlguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Launch water. You don't need to put the water into orbit, just release it in the path of whatever debris you want to deorbit and let your launcher fall back to earth. The debris loses velocity as it passes through a cloud of H2O molecules and slows down enough to re-enter the atmosphere. Sine you don't need the delta-v, the launches are fairly cheap, at least as long as we're at low altitudes.

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    Nothing for 6-digit uids?
  2. Re:Deorbit by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Its expensive to get water into orbit. It is much less expensive to get it directly into space so it falls straight back. You don't want it to be in orbit anyway. You just want a cloud which the debris goes through.

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    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  3. Trapped on earth by EZLeeAmused · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Didn't Arthur C. Clark or someone theorize that at some point in any space-faring civilization, they would lose (at least temporarily) the ability to return to space due to the density of debris orbiting their planet?

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    Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
  4. Planetes by psnyder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's an award winning anime/manga series called Planetes that deals with this very problem. It's about the people whose job it will be to dispose of the detected debris (usually by burning it via atmospheric reentry or through salvage) before it collides into something.