Aussie Lasers To Stop Satellite Collisions, Death

bennyboy64 writes "An Australian company is developing a laser tracking system that will help prevent collisions between satellites and space debris, ZDNet reports. 'The trouble is it's [debris] in orbit and travelling at orbital speeds, which means that it is travelling at about 30,000 kilometres an hour," said the CEO of the Australian company. 'If even a tiny little piece runs into a satellite it'll destroy it or punch a hole through a person if they're out there space walking.'"

Comments

Like radar, but shorter wavelengths

[MichaelSmith]

Electro Optic Systems' laser technology, with the help of a federal government grant, will enable the Mount Stromlo observatory in Canberra to track space junk and sell the data it collects to satellite owners and companies like NASA.

Reading the summary I had hopes they had a laser rocket thing worked out: you heat the leading edge of a bit of space junk. Gas comes off that side and pushes the fragment backwards so it re-enters the atmosphere. But no. Its just a better way to detect the particles.

Not always orbiting in the same direction

[zooblethorpe]

Sure, 30,000 mph is relative to the ground. The velocity of a piece of space junk relative to an astronaut could well be 60,000 mph if it's going the other way round. Even if both junk and astronaut are orbiting west-to-east, they could be on divergent ellipses. So collision speeds could go anywhere from 0 to 60,000 mph. Heck, I'm pretty sure that a collision at a velocity difference of "just" 1,000 mph would hurt.

Cheers,

Not at All

[MacGyver2210]

"track space junk and sell the data it collects to satellite owners and companies like NASA"

So, basically, it doesn't *do* anything. They use it like...oh, a telescope or something, and then *sell* their observations.

Yippee. Shouldn't a project funded by federal grants not be eligible to sell their findings but be required to provide them freely to the public? Seems a little wrong to me.