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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."

19 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Even money bet that Northrup Grumman by yourpusher · · Score: 3, Insightful

    has created a sizeable percentage of the space-junk it's now offering to track.

    Nifty business model, that.

  2. I figured DHS was involved in the space fence... by Majik+Sheff · · Score: 4, Funny

    To keep out the illegal aliens!

    *insert rimshot here*

    --
    Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
  3. Deorbit by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We need to work on how to de-orbit it. My favorite scheme is to use infrared lasers to apply light pressure, and slowly change the orbit.

    --
    Bruce Perens.
    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.

      --
      Nothing for 6-digit uids?
    2. Re:Deorbit by securityfolk · · Score: 2, Insightful
      One problem with that - it's *cold* up there. The water would probably freeze the instant you launched it at something. Now, you could always put a heater up there to keep the water warm, but that results in more space junk.

      Me, I think a giant space vacuum cleaner would do the job.. we just need to borrow one from the folk at Space Balls.

      Now *that's* thinkin with yer dipstick!

    3. Re:Deorbit by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I definitely agree with the general idea but I am concerned that not enough water would sublimate during a suborbital lob. Ideally you want your payload to be liquid or solid at launch to save on structure in the launcher. You could pack it with an explosive but that got me thinking about this coke bottle which was in the back of my car rolling from side to side for hours until I cracked the seal and got myself covered with sticky muck.

      So maybe we need a mixture of CO2 and H2O at moderate pressure to get maximum dispersion. Of course lots of countries are showing off their sounding rockets right now. Maybe this is a good job for them.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    4. Re:Deorbit by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Informative

      Its not cold up there. Its in a vacuum. Vacuum doesn't have a temperature.

      But liquid water released into a vacuum will partly sublimate and partly freeze. Then the frozen water will slowly sublimate as photons from the sun hit it. If you can disperse the water fast enough in vacuum it should sublimate fast because of the huge surface area.

      A different liquid (like Nitrogen) may do a better job.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    5. 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.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    6. Re:Deorbit by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is how satellite killer missles work. Unfortunately, any solution to this problem must take into account the fact that there are many thousands of pieces of space junk big enough to track.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  4. Current Fact Sheet by JumboMessiah · · Score: 3, Informative

    The fact sheet [PDF Warning] on the current VHF system in use.

  5. Planetes? by ArchMageZeratuL · · Score: 4, Informative

    This reminds me of Planetes, a TV anime series by NHK (the Japanese equivalent of PBS/BBC) about the consequences of runaway space garbage in the near future (2072) of humanity. It's an interesting story, and it gets major extra points from me for being remarkably realistic.

  6. 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?

    --
    Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
    1. Re:Trapped on earth by Macrat · · Score: 2, Funny

      It didn't stop them in Wall*E

    2. Re:Trapped on earth by EricJ2190 · · Score: 2, Informative

      What you are thinking of is the Kessler Syndrome.

  7. Here in the UK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    We have a system called NaviSys IV. The project has been going on since the '70s and originally involved large UHF and SHF antennas on balloons/blimps. That idea did not work out well as constant monitoring eventually was needed for tracking spy satellites and movements (e.g. attitude correction), and we went with a ground-based operation either running at L or S-band, but I can't remember which.

    I used to be a technician for the tracking consoles back in the '80s before everything became fully automated. Everything then was mundane as it is now, and the old technology worked very well. Supposedly objects about a half metre were tracked, but that was "classified" information at the time.

    It would appear to me that an American corporation is just trying to get yet another contract to do the same thing that they have been doing for years. VHF/UHF has some disadvantages, but the system in place is (or at least was) similar to the UK's. It looks like yet another money grab by the contractors to replace something that is fully functional and could operate for a generation or two at a nominal cost. What, after all, is a mere $30 million USD, though?

    I sigh when I read these articles.

    1. Re:Here in the UK... by Bakkster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Everything then was mundane as it is now, and the old technology worked very well. Supposedly objects about a half metre were tracked, but that was "classified" information at the time.

      Did you actually read the article? The current system tracks objects 4 inches and larger in diameter. The new system will track objects as small as 1/2 inch in diameter.

      FTA:
      "the United States Space Surveillance Network, managed by U.S. Strategic Command, is tracking more than 19,000 objects in orbit about the Earth, of which approximately 95 percent represent some form of debris. However, these are only the larger pieces of space debris, typically four inches or more in diameter. The number of debris as small as half an inch exceeds 300,000. Due to the tremendous energies possessed by space debris, the collision between a piece of debris only a half-inch in diameter and an operational spacecraft, piloted by humans or robotic, has the potential for catastrophic consequences, he stated."

      It would appear to me that an American corporation is just trying to get yet another contract to do the same thing that they have been doing for years. VHF/UHF has some disadvantages, but the system in place is (or at least was) similar to the UK's. It looks like yet another money grab by the contractors to replace something that is fully functional and could operate for a generation or two at a nominal cost. What, after all, is a mere $30 million USD, though?

      FTA:
      "The current system requires constant sustainment intervention to maintain operations and does not address the growing population of small and micro satellites in orbit, Northrop stated."

      At some point, maintenence costs on big systems like these get too high. A replacement system will not only operate better, but cheaper. Either replace it now and shut off the old system when we're done, or wait until the old system fails and scramble to build a new system (rushed development produces errors and costs more).

      --
      Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
  8. 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.

  9. Wasn't this covered in the TV show Quark? by Dr_Marvin_Monroe · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm pretty sure that Quark covered the "Space Garbage Collection" technology... Why haven't we implemented this?

  10. There's really no need... by triffid_98 · · Score: 2, Funny

    In a few months we'll have Large Hadron Collider back online. The black holes are sure to clean up this mess once they've collected enough planetary mass.