FCC floats 'five-year rule' for hoovering up space junk The US Federal Communications Commission wants to shrink a current requirement for space operators to pull their equipment from low Earth orbit from within 25 years to just five years, according to new rules published yesterday. The new "five-year rule" would require [PDF] space station operators planning to dispose of their …
Exactly. Any satellite without a guidance and positioning system isn't really going to be all that much use. Empty steering jet fuel tanks or worn out gyros are the life limiting factors, barring other operation failures. Using the last of the steering ability to point a SRB in the right direction at the right moment shouldn't be too hard. Making sure that a one shot SRB can sit in space for years and still work might be a little more difficult.
Not just SpaceX. Terminator-tapes/deorbit tethers have been proposed for decades but for a long time nobody wanted to pay for having that extra mass on the vehicle. It's not until recently that serious research into their function has been happening
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/year-in-review/space-tethers-demonstrate-deorbit-capability/
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-cubesat-deployed-de-orbiting-tether-altitude.html
I imagine you're right because I'm now under the belief that people should design and build their own satellites, which thanks to many new open schematics, it is only a matter of money, not difficulty. Yes, I also mean people should launch their own satellites, which is where things become interesting. Fuck it though, let everyone play up there.
I hope to one day launch a completely autonomous satellite designed for the search and destruction of all other satellites. I don't care about your 5G, your GPS, your emergency services bullshit... all I care about is destroying all your fake ass satellites and becoming the sole orbiter.
It seems to me that there has been a complete lack of "accepting responsibility" from both governments and private operators with regards to de-orbiting any of their "birds" once a mission ends.
Whlle it might cost millions of $$ to build and then launch a satellite into orbit, very little thought has been given to including in the "build budget" a few extra $$ to actually make a "controlled re-entry" at the appropriate time...
And in the meantime future missions are being compromised by all this junk in NEO.
It seems to me that any future satellite operator should either build-in a "working" de-orbiting system...or maybe lodge suitable funds with an Earth based company, who will then co-ordinate the de-orbiting of the now-defunct satellite....and perhaps such a mission could de-orbit a number of similar "targets" (in similar orbits) making the cost of de-orbiting each bird cheaper...?
quick overview on whether this will become the new reality :-
Will it cost the launch teams / owners MORE $$$
if YES - then the odds of it being taken up are slim
if NO - then the odds of it being taken up are slim
the reality is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
applies up there as much as down here
and even though we are talking about stuff that IS actually broken, safe to say, if it adds to costs, it will stay as is :o(
That is why we need rules and regulations like this. If the US sets the precedent it's likely more countries will follow. If just the US and EU set these rules that's most of the market cornered (either through launch providers setting the rules or the owners of the infrastructure. In future we might want to convince India and China to follow suit but contrary to popular belief those people aren't stupid and will probably see the value in setting similar rules. They have the equipment to get the mass up there, so it wouldn't be too much of a hindrance in terms of just being able to gain the benefits of spaceflight.
Scrooge McDuck was on the job in 1985 already!
https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Super-Picsou-Geant-Tome-10-Numero-10-56638.html
"As we pointed out at the time, the issue of space debris is broader than what happens on the ground, because if a defunct satellite smashed into another one, or broke apart, the debris could tear into other satellites and potentially create a runaway chain reaction called the Kessler effect. ®"
There are some who would argue (and some incidents as evidence to support this idea) that we are already seeing the beginning blows of a Kessler cascade and if we don't tackle the problem soon-ish we'll have BIG problems in the future
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