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Swiss To Build Orbital Cleaning Satellite
garyebickford writes "As The ETH Lausanne says: 'The proliferation of debris orbiting the Earth – primarily jettisoned rocket and satellite components – is an increasingly pressing problem for spacecraft, and it can generate huge costs. To combat this scourge, the Swiss Space Center at EPFL is announcing today the launch of CleanSpace One, a project to develop and build the first installment of a family of satellites specially designed to clean up space debris.' This looks like a reasonable method, although I think that at some future point it might be useful to just put at least the smaller stuff in a higher 'parking orbit' for later destruction or recycling. This way you wouldn't lose one vacuum cleaner for each satellite retrieved. And much later down the road, it might be useful to collect bigger units — expended boosters, for example — as raw materials and/or containers. The cost of getting the mass into space has already been spent.
I optimistically foresee a future where much of the stuff sent into orbital space has a recycling function built into the design."
Boy, is US Robotics gonna be pissed!
Most of this debris isn't sitting still, It's moving at thousands of MPH. How do you plan to catch something moving that fast without destroying the collector?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I mean, the stereotype of them being neat and orderly was not far off, at least from looking at their towns and cities. Some of the cleanest urban areas I've ever seen. I can see them wanting to clean up outer space too.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Coming from the swiss, that is just hilarious
Awwwwww! I was saving all that debris to build a space fort. Back to my damn treehouse.
I hope this cleaning satellite is a giant wad of bubblegum with a couple of boosters attached to it. It'll just float around getting in the way of the little stuff, all of which will stick to the bubblegum. We all know how well gum picks up little bits of metal like the keys to a jail door, so it should be perfect for satellite debris.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Shades of Quark?
Hmm, sounds like Salvage 1 is about to become reality...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2649501&cid=38896415
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"although I think that at some future point it might be useful to just put at least the smaller stuff in a higher 'parking orbit' for later destruction or recycling. This way you wouldn't lose one vacuum cleaner for each satellite retrieved. And much later down the road, it might be useful to collect bigger units — expended boosters, for example — as raw materials and/or containers"
I don't think you understand the issue. These debris are largely small parts from paint flakes to metal needles. The amount of larger "useful" material is small. Moreover, it's in different orbits. You'd spend more fuel running around getting them than you would save just launching up new mass.
Space Dustman
Given enough debris, things like Chicxulub may be mitigated merely by causing the arriving asteroids to fragment early.
The problem with recycling in space is that machines must be brought up into space to harvest the materials, then other machines would be needed to manufacture items using the recycled objects. Just think of a mother board yes you can get the elements back but creating a new processor takes very specialized machinery that needs upgrading every 5 years or so. For this to even be remotely possible there would all ready have to be a manufacturing facility in space, the up front cost to achieve something like this are hard to fathom and it probably would not be economically feasible to achieve due to the need to upgrade manufacturing facilities to keep pace with facilities on earth.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I doubt this will be feasible but let 'em try. Ironic the "vacuum of space" needs vacuuming...
If energy becomes clean, cheap and plentiful then the cost of bringing stuff to orbit will subside as well as recycling need.
So instead of being like catching a bullet with a baseball mitt, it's like catching a bullet by shooting another bullet at it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
to clean up space and restore order.
Come up alongside the debris, throw a bag around it that was tethered to a mini solid fuel rocket (or stick a mini rocket to the surface of the object). orientate the rocket to slow the debris down, start the mini rocket and let go of the bag?. Or just use a ping pong paddle to smack the debris towards earth.
I know it'd probably violate the outer space militarization treaty, but a laser would be ideal for this sort of thing. Just give it a high-resolution camera, stick it in an extremely high geosynchronous orbit, and start zapping. Even a small change in orbit should be enough to push this stuff back down into the atmosphere and out of the way.
Yeah, this idea already exists as an anime:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes
It just seems weird that we combat space junk by... launching a new family of satellites.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Katamari that weird video game where you roll up a bigger and bigger ball of stuff until you end up absorbing everything?
Well, I've proposed in the past of using aerogels as a giant, low mass "sponge" to mop up orbital debris. The big problem is that nobody has demonstrated a way of manufacturing the stuff, in space, and certainly not without using a lot of the (heavy) supercritical fluid it takes to do it on earth. Since it is too bulky to launch from earth already made, this idea remains in the realm of science fiction.
Anyway, here's a different take on this idea. Perhaps, this Swiss (and other) probes could be launched with the following program in mind. First, they should go after the biggest piece of debris they can find, a spent upper stage would be just fine. Then, using a highly efficient ion engine, they should (slowly) change the orbit of the upper stage so that it will hit other pieces of space debris in as close to head-on collisions as possible. Wham!
While I hardly expect the pieces to stick together like in the video game, the resultant collision should slow down any resulting fragments from the space debris (and the upper stage battering ram) so they will de-orbit quickly. When, after many collisions, the battering ram has been whittled down to no longer be effective, the probe should push it so it de-orbits quickly and goes off to find another. In this way, over a ((very) long) period of time this one probe can clean up a lot of space debris! Think Wall-E in space.
Of course the probe will have to be specially designed to do this task. It'll need a LOT of propellent, even with an ultra-efficient ion engine you're talking about significant delta-vee of large masses. Big engines would help too because otherwise it'll take a LONG time to change these orbits. A good grappling mechanism and thrusters (ion again?) will be required to stop the upper stage from spinning. Also, even though it'll use the upper stage as a battering ram, it might need to have its own armoring; there will doubtless be scattered hypervelocity fragments. (Big solar panels for the probe are pretty vulnerable, a small reactor or even laser power from the ground might be needed for the power hungry ion drives). Finally, some of the most advanced anti-sat/anti-ballistic targeting technology will be needed to hit the debris; you're still hitting a bullet with a (big) bullet. At least the space debris is unlikely to be taking any evasive maneuvers!
What's critical of course is that the probe/battering ram hits the space debris as HEAD-ON as possible, this is to rob the debris (and its fragments) of as much orbital momentum as possible so that they almost literally "fall out of the sky". Otherwise you'll potentially end up with a situation like when the defunct Rusian sat hit the Iridium satellite; much MORE debris was created. As for the probe/battering ram, of course it will lose orbital momentum during each collision, the difference is that it can regain it with its ion-drive (better not hit something too big!).
Leave it to the super-orderly Swiss to decide that their big contribution to satellites will be to keep everyone else's neat and tidy.
got the whole new meaning!
I learned from Speed - I thought they all had to stay over 55 mph...
Try the simple way. How about a fairly high sub-orbital launch of a bunch of water, perhaps with an explosive device to disperse it.
The water is below orbital velocity, even with any velocity added by the explosion. Ditto for the container the water was in. In short order you have a giant cloud of water vapor. Everything flying through that cloud loses a little velocity from collisions with the vapor. A little more time and the water and it's original container fall back to Earth. A little "downrange velocity" would increase the dwell time for the water vapor to stay in orbit, yet keep it all suborbital.
Energetically suborbital launches are a heck of a lot easier than orbital ones, even if a little downrange velocity is added. (Don't forget the first 1000mph is free.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Will handle the problem, expanding the atmosphere sufficiently to erode the orbits and burn the debris. I expect Fox will take credit.
It will probably have a fold-out corkscrew.
Why come back to atmosphere - why not just shoot captured stuff into a retro orbit which boosts the Collector Craft - that way many pieces can be cleared as Collector makes its way to higher orbit.
Well, all the stuff is up there; and yes, it needs to get collected some how. So why not:
1. Collect it into a massive space junk yard that can be managed.
2. Put up a refinery to take in the materials from the space junk yard and produce useful raw materials
3. Use the useful raw materials to (a) maintain the refinery, and (b) build additional stuff in space.
After all, wouldn't that be cheaper than bringing it down to earth and having to resend all the required materials up there again whenever we need to build something?
I could easily see a multi-national corporation or political body being able to manage this so that it could benefit any space-bearing country.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Think Katamari Damacy IN SPACE!
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Could be a great way to scoop up abandoned bits of technology and analyze them and/or profit from them...
Clearly this is an act of aggression of the Swiss as an insult to the pioneers of space travel, Russia and USA, and to undermine the cooperation between Russia and USA to install more facilities in space. But perhaps the real and treacherous purpose of this mission is to acquire military technology from the Eastern and Western powers to use for their own insidious plan to spread the concept of peace and neutrality throughout the world. The Swiss cannot be trusted to launch even one rocket into space. They may even go as far as to capture defunct commercial satellites to violate and exploit the intellectual property and trade secrets developed by private space faring corporations. This unjust enrichment cannot be allowed to stand!
Perhaps you say I am a shrill and making mountains out of mole-hills, but then answer this: Why does Switzerland, even today, still enforce compulsory military service for males 19 years of age and older? Why does a neutral "non-aggressive" nation have an army so large that during the 20th century it had the second largest armed force per capita after the Israeli Defence Forces? Why would a nation of peaceful citizens REQUIRE their soldiers to keep their assault rifles IN THEIR HOMES like red-necks from Texas? Why does the Swiss military maintain the Onyx intelligence gathering system for spying on both civil and military communications, such as telephone, fax or Internet traffic, carried by satellite? Why do Swiss building codes require radiation and blast shelters, and why does every family or rental agency have to pay a replacement tax to support these shelters, or alternatively own a personal shelter in their place of residence? Why does Switzerland claim to be a "neutral" country when they engage in "peace keeping" operations? Why is "the peaceful coexistence of nations" one of the five goals of Swiss foreign policy when, for such a small country, they are the 13th largest arms exporter in the world, including some of the finest weapons ever made?
Don't believe what I'm saying? It's all here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_army
No, I believe it would be more like catching a 25,000mph bullet while doing 25,000mph yourself. Just make sure you're both going in the same direction...
The problem is that orbits and velocities are different, that is why debris is often such a hazard. Its not just stuff moving in the opposite direction, its stuff moving in the same direction at a different velocity. A collector would need a lot of fuel to be matching various orbits and velocities.
This rate of change in the janitorial industry is unprecedented.
Most of this debris isn't sitting still, It's moving at thousands of MPH. How do you plan to catch something moving that fast without destroying the collector?
A collector could be sacrificial, designed to just sit there and take the hits. As long as it captures the debris and does not itself spall and generate more debris. A loose analogy would be a block of ballistic gelatin capturing a bullet as the bullet fragments.
Anyone remember "Salvage One"?
I wonder how long until it falls apart and creates more debris, which will need to be cleaned up by more satellites.
There's no such school as ETH Lausanne. ETH is an acronym for "Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule." Lausanne is in the French speaking part of Switzerland and the school is EPFL, or École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne.
So this doesn't strike anyone as odd? We here in the US have to rationalize everything in terms of money. We don't even lift a finger anymore unless it pays off in the long run as it's unjustifiable, yet the Swiss are going to be spending billions to clean up other peoples messes in outer space? We can't even get most people to do that here in the US without adding a price tag to it.
Seriously, just take a step back and look at this for a moment.
And it shall be colored red and it will have a white cross painted over the rocket fuel tanks. After all, who knows what cleaning situations it will encounter. It better be prepared for everything.
Since each of these satellites is going is going to put out of orbit one existing satellite and itself, we are going to be leaving a booster rocket in orbit, so the way I see it, we send the satellite and the booster rocket up and down two sattelites, we are leaving a booster rocket instead of the satellite wich is bigger and produces more problems. Unless there is a way to use this satellite capturing satellite more than once in the same trip, looks like a waste of time and money...
http://www.who-sucks.com/tech/8-reasons-why-att-sucks-beyond-all-belief
Warsaw University of Science and Technology has already launched an experimental satellite to check for feasibility of faster debris deorbiting. It has a deployable tail that significantly reduces (via drag) orbiting time.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/PW_Sat_Poland_first_satellite_launched_into_orbit_999.html
You can imagine this technology used for cleaning space, either by using such mechanisms on new satellites to burn them faster when no longer needed, or attach them (tbd how) to existing debris.
gas spreads over large area, stuff will hit the cloud, slow down and fall down
(OK, I read the entire article.) So . . . who pays for all this? The Swiss Government? Swiss Insurance companies? They're cleaning up all the USA/Russian/Chinese junk out of the pure goodness of their hearts?
I mean . . . its a DEFINITE NEED . . . I've just never understood, even if we developed the technology, who would pay for it? If you could de-orbit it slowly and preserve the parts . . . some independent savager might have some some juicy silver/gold (and other precious metals) to recycle for sale. But . . . right now, I don't see the cost/benefit to clean up OTHER peoples mess.
As for how, . . . "catching" things going so fast, seems problematic. And the "catcher" is also flying around and expelling/expending fuel and becomes yet another part of the problem. Pushing things up and out of orbit with lasers would seem to require lots of power. A better method might be to send a higher stable-orbit satellite up to use solar powered lasers to "push down" items to burn up in orbit. Even if it takes a few days between bursts to recharge. (Really, I mean, a giant orbital platform with lasers facing down towards the earth . . . what could possibly go wrong with that?) OK, with some good targeting and positioning, you could catch items at the horizon, and only blast away at items where the earth isn't actually behind them, laser-line-of-site-wise.
No, I don't remember your name. But the memory mapped screen on a TRS80 from 1977 is from 15360 to 16383 if that helps.
Finally "vacuum cleaner" could be a justifiable term...