back to article Space Station ready to SWERVE sat junk hurtling towards it

The scheduled undocking of the ESA’s automated transfer vehicle (ATV) from the International Space Station (ISS) is being delayed as NASA and Russian managers prepare for a possible “debris avoidance maneuver” on Thursday. NASA has announced that the ATV’s engines may be needed to execute the maneuver, should it be required. …

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  1. Ralph B
    Boffin

    What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

    Don't the Americans have a astronaut ready to do an E.V.A. equipped with a baseball bat?

    1. Crisp
      Terminator

      Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

      I contend that the only way to effectively deal with space debris is with a giant frickin laser.

      That way, the first bit of space debris to cross the ISS path could be blasted to smithereens and made an example of to others.

      I would also accept a swarm of micro satellites as a solution for the job.

      1. JimC

        Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

        The trouble with that approach is that you end up with lots of smithereens in orbit... Unless you can actually guarantee to blast them down to whatever tiny size is so small that you can ignore it (and I have a feeling, but could be wrong, that means well under the size of an average grain of sand) then what you are doing is in many respects making things worse.

      2. Nigel 11

        Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

        Absolutely the wrong thing to do. Google "Kessler syndrome", or read some SF.

        A single large piece of space junk can be tracked and avoided. 10000 small pieces of space junk can't. And at orbital velocities, even small pieces can cause huge damage.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

          Jesus H. Christ people, chill. I think that whole "huge friking lazer" thing may have been a light-hearted aside, mixed with a love of blowing stuff up. It wasn't an actual serious suggestion.

          1. Crisp

            Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

            Actually, I believe that ablating part of a chunk of debris with a laser would impart some delta-v to the chunk in question. Vaporising or blowing up a chunk of debris would be an unfeasible solution. But providing enough thrust with laser to either knock it out of orbit, or knock it off course enough to miss the station is entirely doable. You use the laser to provide power, and the debris itself is it's own reaction mass.

            I think that there are rocket engines based on the idea of firing a powerful laser from a distance to ablate material from the back of a space ship in order to provide it with thrust.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: providing enough thrust with laser to ... knock it off course

              You beat me to it. Thinking about it a bit more, though, you're counting on targetting a suitable bit of debris sticking out in the right place at the right angle, which would complicate things - without that you'll just set the junk spinning.

              1. Crisp

                Re: providing enough thrust with laser to ... knock it off course

                Spinning junk would be a problem.

      3. Stoneshop

        Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

        I contend that the only way to effectively deal with space debris is with a giant frickin laser.

        Better to have the giant frickin' space shark the laser's mounted on gobble up the debris.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What ever happened to the "Right Stuff"?

      Amaericans? I would have thought the Russians could just threaten violence, while the debris takes one look at the crew and says "not a chance, I'm off!"

      I'd not want to get into a fight with any astronaut!

  2. Myopic Aardvark
    Unhappy

    Navigational Deflectors?

    It's a sad fact that this piece of sci-fi tech is more likely to be required just to be in orbit of our own planet, rather than interstellar spaceflight.

    It's 2012 - as I was growing up in the 70s & 80s, they promised me moonbases and antigravity belts :(

    1. ContentsMayVary
      Happy

      Re: Navigational Deflectors?

      The also promised us global thermonuclear war, so perhaps it's not all bad. ;)

      1. NomNomNom
        Unhappy

        Re: Navigational Deflectors?

        yeah they also promised us flying cars. so we get no flying cars, thermonuclear war or moon bases. sad.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: Navigational Deflectors?

          Robot monkey butlers. That is all.

          1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: Navigational Deflectors?

            And what about jet-packs, I want a jet-pack! It does not even need antigravity, for goodness' sake (or slood for that matter)

            1. Captain DaFt

              Re: Navigational Deflectors?

              "And what about jet-packs, I want a jet-pack! It does not even need antigravity, for goodness' sake (or slood for that matter)"

              Here ya go... just needs a large enough body of water to fly over.

              http://www.jetlev-flyer.com/

              WARNING: Annoying, loud music courtesy of some stupid market type.

        2. Euripides Pants
          Happy

          Re: Flying Cars

          I've flown cars a number of times in my youth - all you need is enough speed and a large bump in the road. The landings were a bit harsh, tho....

          And yes, I'm an American.

  3. Dave 62

    "recently grabbed the headlines by modifying a toothbrush to use as a thread-cleaner"

    So they cleaned a bolt cos it were dirty?

    With PR like this no wonder space travel is still stuck in the 70s.

    1. Stoneshop
      FAIL

      They cleaned a threaded hole. Which is a bit more involved, given that it is somewhere on the outside of the ISS.

      Was it too hard to click on the link and read what that was about?

      1. Dave 62

        It doesn't actually specifically say that in the article and in the article that the linked-to article links to it suggest that NASA at one point thought there might be damage to the thread in the hole, but it's inconclusive. Either way it's still not exactly a big deal. They used a bit of wire and a toothbrush to clean it, woopedy-f**king-doo. Had they re-threaded or heli-coiled the hole I'd be more impressed. By the sounds of it they had mounting posts though ("receptacle posts"), which to me implies a bolt with a threaded hole in it, like motherboard posts, so they wouldn't necessarily have had to do it in-situ.

        As an aside, Firefox delightfully suggest "on-site" as a correction for in-situ.

        Still feeling smarmy?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Dave 62

          Ever tried doing that in zero G while wearing a space suit in orbit and tethered for the sake of your small insignificant life? No? Then get back to us when you have and have proven it easy.

  4. Graham Marsden
    Alert

    "Helm...

    "... Evasive manoeuvres!"

  5. NomNomNom

    I am no expert on rocket science but couldnt the astronoughts moon walk outside of the space station and prod/catch the flying debris with log poles and nets? of course government scientists never think of the easy (read: cheap) option. our tax dollars at work!

    1. The Commenter formally known as Matt

      that just....

      wow, just wow

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Commenter formally known as Matt

        I think it was a "joke".

    2. Callam McMillan

      Depends on the closing speeds. I'm pretty sure if I asked you do go outside and catch a bullet mid-flight with a pole and net you might struggle a bit!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      couldnt the astronoughts

      They're "nauts", although after carrying out your manoeuvre they'd be "noughts" right enough.

      1. Daniel Evans

        Re: couldnt the astronoughts

        They'd be astronuts to even consider doing such a thing!

  6. Silverburn
    Boffin

    that the red zone is a 50 km square, 1.5 km deep, surrounding the ISS.

    Given Space is 3D, surely a sphere would be be more logical? In fact, surely it would be rugby ball shaped, with the long axis on the path of travel?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Stoneshop
      Boffin

      Well

      In fact, surely it would be rugby ball shaped, with the long axis on the path of travel?

      Whose path of travel? The ISS, or the piece of debris? Given that LEO objects can have any orientation of orbit, your shape would turn out an oblate spheroid.

    3. Dave 62
      Trollface

      I think you'll find that's due to the ISS being longer and wider than it is deep

  7. Nigel 11
    Happy

    Space-cleaners

    Serious suggestions have been made about how to clean up orbital junk. You'd need orbiting robot craft that would match orbit with each piece of junk and deal with it. You won't want to take the junk on board because that means you'd need more fuel for the next orbital rondezvous, and soon you'd be out of fuel.

    The manouvering would use a low-thrust high-efficiency electrically-powered thuster such as VASIMR. When it matched orbit with a piece of junk it would attach a very lightweight "parachute". Something to maximise drag with respect to the very thin atmosphere or solar wind up there. This would cause the piece of junk to de-orbit over a number of years, ending with it re-entering and burning up.

    Sort of like a fleet of orbiting Roombas!

    1. Silverburn

      Re: Space-cleaners

      A sound concept, except a lot of the (detectable) crap up there is only a couple of inches across, making recovery tricky and high cost. And getting hit by a metallic object at 500 m/sec is gonna do damage whether it's 2 inches or 20 feet in size.

      And thus the NASA dilema on how to clean it all up.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't understand

    The article mentions "tracking data shows an object “edging inside” what it calls the “red zone” of proximity to the space station".

    Surely an object that is just "edging inside" this zone around the ISS is of no threat. I thought the problem was pieces of debris that arrive at orbital speeds (relative to ISS)?

    Or do they mean that the orbital path of these objects (that are moving very fast relative to ISS) are starting to slowly creep into the "red-zone"?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I don't understand

      "Edging in" refers to the orbit approaching the ISS. Although, even a slow moving object is a problem. You don't want it stuck in your air lock doors or engine nozzles.

      No doubt other collisions can knock parts closer to the station. Are they going to wait till it gets too close? No, they deal with it now when they still have time. Or things such as solar winds can effect it AFAIK. Not sure how much it effect the orbit though.

  9. Sureo
    Coat

    I visualize the ISS traveling through space with a stream of debris trailing behind. Periodic orbital shifts are required to get out of the path of their own junk.

  10. David 45

    Star Trek technology

    Shields up, Mr. Sulu (or whoever has charge of them!)

  11. DanceMan

    Red zone

    Inside the 20 yard line, Shirley!

    It's CFL season.

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