Satellite collision anticipated by EU space agency fails to materialize... for now at least Two days ago, the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) initiative warned of a possible collision on Friday between two orbiting objects, but it now appears they passed each other without incident. The two chunks of space junk are identified as OPS 6182 (1978-042A), a defunct US meteorological satellite, and SL-8 R/B ( …
As long as you also write a stiff letter to the USA concerning their 1985 "test", when they conducted an anti-satellite missile test using an ASM-135 ASAT to destroy the P78-1 satellite.
And another stiff letter concerning the 2008 "Operation Burnt Frost", when the USA launched another missile to bring down the non-functioning low-altitude NRO USA-193 satellite...which had a "classified" use designation (and assumed to be a High Def Radar system), though it was predcited that little debris would remain in space from this...but no one is sure.
On the bright side, things appear to be moving in the right direction now at least. With SpaceX rather leading the way towards fully reusable rockets, and others working on extending the life of satellites, or at least moving them into safe graveyard orbits.
If SpaceX's Starship concept works out, then that'd be the first time since the Space Shuttle that a satellite can be launched or even recovered/repaired without adding to the pile of old hardware up there in terms of discarded second stages and what not.
As for cleaning up current trash in orbit, the main problem one has there is that of velocity and thus kinetic energy. When even a fleck of paint is zipping along at a few km/s, then simply putting something in its path won't do more than cause a very spectacular explosion worst case or best case a puncture hole and a paint fleck that's now hurtling either into space or towards the atmosphere.
Hmm.
Given that SpaceX is also throwing up entire satellite constellations in volumes few others can match, I think this is a score-draw at best.
I'm no rocket scientist but if a couple of Starlink birds collide I reckon we are right royally f*cked.
SpaceX's constellations are at _very low_ altitudes which have a maximum endurance of 5 years without constant reboosting from their onboard ion thrusters (ditto any debris from collisions - note that they have onboard collision avoidance software so this is fairly unlikely anyway)
They launch them into initial orbits which come down even faster than that (18 months or less)
The irritating thing about bringing down a lot of the smaller shit is that "we" already have the technology to do so (laser brooms) but actually deploying it risks causing a war because being able to bring your stuff down also means you can use it to bring down the other guy's stuff and nobody will agree to a closely supervised cooperative effort
(it's not even particularly difficult to bring things down - just sufficiently destabilise the orbit to make it mildly elliptical and the atmosphere will do the rest for you)
They get it wrong and Envisat collides with something.
Cue "Gravity"
Actually it could be worse than that, some of these things have nuclear reactors on board though fortunately most are in a high orbit out of harm's way.
US Space Command have a very high pressure job as it is, what with the "other" folks moaning about how hard it is to navigate all the various pieces of
space junk to get to/from the ISS and other facilities.
Satellite collision anticipated by EU space agency fails to materialize
Surely in a collision things get dematerialised (or at least a close approximation) at orbital velocities, and since there was no collision....
Satellite collision anticipated by EU space agency fails to dematerialize <-- FTFY
Here on earth, and in Manchester UK, we have "litter wardens" on the High Street that will issue fixed penalty notices to those who drop and then refuse at the 1st time of asking to pick up their litter (cans, bottles, sweet wrappers and fag ends etc.).
In space, the rule should also apply and retrospectively too. Whilst it may be difficult to send up some space "Wombles" we now have a clear picture of recent polluters.
We also have the sensitive but increasingly important subject of the Moon and Mars more recently being treated as a dumping ground for unused parachutes (recent Mars landing) and other equipment.
I'm not one of the "Rafia Mafia" types, I just think that we have enough shit on our own doorsteps to deal with without polluting space.
A big electromagnetic space machine is called for and the cost equally borne by the polluters.
Toodle Pip!
"The Polluter Should Pay!!!"
Polluters and their nuclear arsenal say "sod off"...
Seriously, that kind of stuff is always easy to claim, but very tricky to enforce. Already making a puny little company pay for its pollution is nigh impossible, so imagine trying it against a superpower nation...
As we might expect, the US will push forward with its "Space Debris Removal by Laser Satellites" whatever anybody else says, and the rest of the spacefaring world will see anti-satellite testing. Given that the US turned down a number of anti-satellite ban treaties over the past few decades, on grounds that were rather thin - if they were serious at any point in the proceedings, they'd've bend bent over backwards to get everybody on board, the way they did with the Law of the Sea Convention, and left no stone unturned.
Proof of the pudding's in the eating, not the advertisement, dear chaps and chapettes in the US govt, so please pull finger - if you know how - and get things worked out ASAP.
is a lot bigger than the doom-sayers say. Having said that, when it DOES fill, the mess will also be bigger.
At the same time, various cleaning technologies are going to get easier almost every year, and the leadership of the big boys are rational enough that someone who declares, "We're going to zap object X in 48 hours unless someone objects" won't be known as the bad guys. The biggest thing is likely to be the national loss of face for some one else cleaning up your trash, but that's avoidable.
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