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Space Science Technology

Indian Robot Will Capture Space Debris 95

Posted by timothy from the static-cling dept.
CowboyRobot writes "India is set to launch the 'Space Robot', which, controlled from Earth, will capture damaged satellites and space debris. This seems a less ambitious, and more immediately practical venture than the current Mars missions."
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Indian Robot Will Capture Space Debris More

Indian Robot Will Capture Space Debris

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  • TLMOM (Score:1)

    by GoRK ( 10018 )
    We are the space robots.

    We are here to protect you.

    We are here to protect you from the terrible secret of space.

    Space has a terrible power.

    Do you have stairs in your house?

  • Battlebots (Score:4, Funny)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:22PM (#7747889)

    While Japan had very advanced Robotic Technology, it lacked the launch vehicle capability. On the other hand the United States had a very advanced Space programme but did not possess Robotic technology, Dr Dayal added.

    Somehow I doubt that the US didn't have the robotic technology... I imagine a seasons worth of battlebots constructors could handle this task.
    The SR will use solar energy to activate its 'wrist' movement and to navigate through space.

    In fact, that confirms it. I think any of the spinner bots would work...

  • Short on details, long on possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:26PM (#7747917) Homepage Journal
    The 'Space Robot' (SR), with an in-built 'RUDAC' communication signal processor, will be used to capture damaged satellites and space debris from crashing to Earth, CSRDC-CSRL and ISRDO Director Dr M Sreedhar Dayal told UNI.

    Putting aside the poor translation, it's clear that the article's writer doesn't have much of a scientific background. Unless you're talking about a mass comparable to the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [nasa.gov] or perhaps the Hubble, there's not much need to prevent debris from "crashing into the earth". 100,000 feet of atmosphere does a fine job by itself, and puts on a great light show to boot.

    The obvious benefit of this space scoop is to clear NEO of the sort of debris that occasionally causes the ISS and the Shuttle to take evasive maneuvers [space.com] from time to time.

    But I know what I'd be interested in, if I were a developing nation with orbital capability. The space around Earth is turning into the next big salvage yard, especially if the costs of this mission are comparable to a high-profile terrestrial salvage operation [raisethetitanic.com]. What better way to find out what other nations have been doing in the space above your country, than to grab a few samples of their equipment?

    It's even better than a earthbound salvage operation, because there's no weathering beyond radiation and collisions with other pieces of debris. A defunct spy satellite would be in as good a condition now as it was the day it entered orbit, especially in terms of reverse-engineering. The chips may have a few bits shorted out, but the circuit boards, wiring harnesses, optics, propulsion systems, and so on could hold a trove of information.

    And there's one thing I'm dying to do -- buy space knicknacks. NASA and the Russians could probably fund a significant space program by simply selling off that ton or so of "trash" brought back by each shuttle mission or burnt up in the used Progress craft. If India can bring back space nuts, old thruster bells, and the like, they could make a killing on eBay [ebay.com]!

    • Re:Short on details, long on possibilities (Score:4, Funny)

      by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:55PM (#7748186)
      "If India can bring back space nuts, old thruster bells, and the like, they could make a killing on eBay!"

      There's several spanners loose up there along with a Hassleblad camera [thinkquest.org]...

    • Re:Short on details, long on possibilities (Score:5, Informative)

      by geoswan ( 316494 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @06:11PM (#7748837) Journal
      May I suggest that it is a mistake to think of India as a "developing country"? I had an Indian friend at University who could be relied on to remind us that, in absolute terms, India's industrial capacity placed it among the dozen or so most industrialized nations on earth.

      Compare the economies of India [cia.gov] and Russia [cia.gov]. India's GDP was about twice that of Russia's last year. While a higher proportion of Russia's GDP was in its industrialized sector, India's industrialized sector is still larger, in absolute terms.

      There is an old aphorism that inside every fat man there is a thin man screaming to get out. So, remember, India's industrial sector is larger than Russia's.

      • Last I checked, India's population was roughly eight times that of Russia... Makes that 2x GDP figure a little less impressive, huh?

        From the pages you linked, per-capita GDP:

        India: $2,540
        Russia: $9,300

        Sorry to rain on your parade.

        There's no shame in being called "developing". It means that progress is being made.
        • There's no shame in being called "developing". It means that progress is being made.

          So, it's like winning the "Most Improved Player" award in Little League, right? You just have to gloss over the fact that to be "improved", you probably really sucked before.

          Though here in the US, I guess we've bought into it. But for some reason, when a product says "New Improved Whitening Formula", I always wonder why I should buy a product that admits it didn't used to work.
          • I guess we should just write off places where the standard of living sucks then, because it's an insult to call them developing when they start to crawl out of it.... That or we can just lie about the past to make everybody feel better; after all, the knowledge of poor conditions in the past isn't helpful in any way in the present. There's probably a few other options, but for everbodys sake, we should avoid the truth at all costs!
            • There's probably a few other options, but for everbodys sake, we should avoid the truth at all costs!

              Isn't that the American Way? :)

              I myself won the "Most Improved Player" award more than once, and it was indeed because I thoroughly sucked before.

              Back in my original posting, many generations ago now, I called India a "Developing" nation. I was taken to task (lightly) for it, but further replies seem to bear out the description. And my flippant reply aside, it's not really such a bad thing to be "Devel
          • I honestly feel a little insulted right. My freshman year on the cross country team I won the most improved award and was fifth on the team. Before that I was about right in the middle, somewhere 11th. I started running three miles in 22 minutes and immediately flew up to 17 minutes. I graduated teh fastest on the team

  • Really cool! (Score:3, Informative)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:26PM (#7747920) Homepage Journal
    There's a theory that if there's enough space-junk that you could develope a chain reaction where one peice of junk shatters another, and really quickly you end up with a bunch of miniscule but deadly debris that will make space exploration almost impossible.

    Thanks India!

  • Heh. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:26PM (#7747925)
    It's nice to think of this as practical from the perspective of cleaning up space debris, but the real point of this is almost certainly for India to show that they have the ability to take out sattelites they don't like, much like the early Soviet and American sub-orbital flights and sattelite launches were demonstrations that we could drop explosive devices on each other from halfway around the world. Don't assume that something this complex and costly is being done out of the kindness of the Indian government's heard, or for the good of humanity when there's an obvious military benefit; especially considering their current cold war with Pakistan, and the technological escilation in China.
    • That sounds about right. It sure scared the bejeezus out of the US government when Sputnik's beeps could be picked up every time it passed overhead.

      I for one welcome our new Indian space-robot overlords! (Sorry, I had to say that!)

    • --That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the article, man. Scary.

      --I wonder what the US response will be?

  • Excellent application of ion engines (Score:3, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:29PM (#7747942)
    Ion engines [slashdot.org] would be well suited to this application. Their high specific impulse means they could have the fuel reserves needed to change orbits multiple times to catch debris. Solar power, instead of a nuclear power source, could provide the electricity to run the engine.

    Hmmm... figuring out the optimal set of manuveurs to catch a set of debris objects that are all in different orbits would be very tricky. I guess that would have to be called the Traveling Spaceman Problem.

    • Re:Excellent application of ion engines (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Unknown Kadath ( 685094 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:57PM (#7748217)
      Hmmm... figuring out the optimal set of manuveurs to catch a set of debris objects that are all in different orbits would be very tricky.

      I'm picturing it towing a huge red horsehoe magnet on a string, with all kinds of dead satellites stuck to it.

      Really, while it's nice in concept to talk about cleaning up Earth orbit, the real danger is from the bits we can't even find, never mind capture, like paint chips. Sure, they only mass a few grams, but get a few grams travelling at a few km/s in one direction, and a spacecraft travelling a few km/s in the other, then do the math to find out the total kinetic energy of the system. (Hint: KE = 0.5 * m * v^2) Fortunately, space is big, but we're still doing our best to clutter it up, especially in LEO.

      What we need is a satellite with a really big version of one of those pool skimmer thingies.

      -Carolyn
    • while ion engines are efficient, they also offer very poor acceleration. since, i guess, this robot would have to manouver quite a bit, ion engines wouldn't be very useful

    • Re:Excellent application of ion engines (Score:4, Interesting)

      by zwanglos ( 733021 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @05:15PM (#7748381) Homepage
      This doesn't really seem like a good application for ion engines [bbc.co.uk]. They are designed more for long distance deep space travel as they build speed very slowly.

      This device will probably have more conventional thruster units that allow for high thrust and greater manueverability - especially if trying to catch objects that are no longer in orbit.

      Here is a comparison of space engine capabilities: Engine Comparisons [northwestern.edu].

      • Re:Excellent application of ion engines (Score:4, Interesting)

        by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @05:49PM (#7748665) Homepage Journal
        This device will probably have more conventional thruster units that allow for high thrust and greater manueverability - especially if trying to catch objects that are no longer in orbit.

        Well, technically, if it's up there, it's "in orbit" around the Earth's center of gravity. It just may be the case that at some point in the object's orbit, the distance to the center of the earth is less than the earth's radius!

        The problem with the low-power ion engine would be conservation of momentum, I'd think (though I'm not any sort of expert). If the craft is moving "forward", and the object it encounters is at the same altitude but moving "backward", capturing the object will cause some sort of change in the momentum of both objects.

        The small object will abruptly begin moving in the opposite direction (unless it punches a hole in yer scoop!), but its kinetic energy (???) will slow down the big object. Just like the atmosphere, thin as it is, exerts a drag on objects in orbit that's proportional to the number of atoms hitting the object (which is proportional to the object's surface area).

        That's when orbital mechanics kicks in. The slower you go, the smaller your orbit. Each "hit" sends the catcher closer to a fiery end, kind of like a celestial Slashdot effect.

        Also, how will the satellite "catch" its targets?You can't just step on the accelerator to catch up to something, because increasing your orbital velocity increases your altitude. To go "up", you have to accelerate forward, to go "down", you have to accelerate backward, and I still don't fully understand what happens when you accelerate in some direction outside your orbital path!

        All this is facinating, but boy, does it make my head spin...
        • Also, how will the satellite "catch" its targets?You can't just step on the accelerator to catch up to something, because increasing your orbital velocity increases your altitude. To go "up", you have to accelerate forward, to go "down", you have to accelerate backward, and I still don't fully understand what happens when you accelerate in some direction outside your orbital path!

          You sum the vectors of the current velocity and the delta v (that is, change in velocity caused by thrust), and the new vector
    • A couple of posts (#1 [slashdot.org] and #2 [slashdot.org] ) rightly point out that ion engines are low-thrust devices. They suggest that because debris capture requires lots of manueverability, that more conventional engines might be better. But this is where I disagree and argue that in the long run, an ion engine's greater specific impulse actually provides more total manueverability than any chemical rocket.

      Yes, a chemical rocket lets you change orbits very quickly -- zipping from orbit to orbit to catch debris. Yet the total
  • What OS will it run on?

  • Orbital Debris: Plot of Planet-es Anime/Manga (Score:3, Informative)

    by StCredZero ( 169093 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @04:40PM (#7748036)
    This sounds like a precursor to Planet-es [tokyopop.com]. It's a very well written anime [animesuki.com] (even from a Hard Sci-fi [earth.li] POV)
    • I was going to bring up Planetes. One of the very few "hard" sci-fi stories I've ever thought was really excellent.

      Main characters are astronauts who collect space debris of various kind for a corporation who does space cargo and passenger flights.

      An entire episode of the anime is devoted to medical issues arising from extended periods in space. One of the minor characters describes herself as a 'Lunarian'. She's a 12-year old girl who's over five feet tall and has very brittle bones and other medical pro
  • when this thing starts adding to itself ala Voltron from the debris it picks up. Yes, I think I'm imagining a Beowulf cluster of space junk, siphoning fuel and parts from other dead or rogue satellites. Of course the question then is when will this 'Skynet' cluster achieve self-awareness?
  • Hyderabad, Dec 14.(UNI): In another step forward for the Indian space programme, the country is all set to launch its first "Space Robot". The 'Space Robot' (SR), with an in-built 'RUDAC' communication signal processor, will be used to capture damaged satellites and space debris from crashing to Earth, CSRDC-CSRL and ISRDO Director Dr M Sreedhar Dayal told UNI. Signals could be sent from an Earth station to make the Robot, built with a space control system, perform various tasks. The SR will use solar ene

  • This could be a great fiscal venture (Score:4, Interesting)

    by E1v!$ ( 267945 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @06:25PM (#7748929) Homepage
    If the robot could capture the debris, and put it all in some kind of framework, a 'junk warehouse' if you will.. It could be a fantastic way to aquire raw material in orbit without having to pay much of the shipping cost.

  • the price seems right ... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward


    for those who are not familiar with the rupee..


    50cr Rupees ~ 11 Mil $

    What's 50 cr [yahoo.com]

  • Weird (Score:1)

    by CXI ( 46706 )
    I don't know, it just all sounds a little weird. It imagine it's a technology test mission and all that, but I can't help but imagine their mission control rejoicing on a capture of some debris, when suddenly from the back of the room someone says "So, what do we do with the debris now that we have it?" The reply: "Why, we let it go again! We can grab and release stuff forever through the magic of solar power!"

    There's no mention of fuel reserves to make some attempt to relocate object, repair them, etc. Ju
    • My idea for a space debris system would be completely different.

      Debris breaks down into a couple of different types.

      Also don't worry about the stuff in the lower decaying orbits. Go after the stuff that's in the higher stable orbits.

      Firstly, go after the small stuff. Bolts, tools, screws and all that fun stuff. My idea would be to build a satelite that the front end would have a bunch of ablative octagional shields that would obsorb and hold onto small space junk. Then when the things got lots of spa

      • Re:Weird (Score:1)

        by CXI ( 46706 )
        Pushing it out of orbit would be too expensive. The only two real options are to try to clump it all together and hopefully process it later, or push it into the atmosphere. The main problem with just chucking things down the gravity well is that you have to make sure you don't hit anything else with it! Think about international issues, insurance, etc if you end up throwing some space junk into someone else's satellite! Clumping it has issues too. Putting everything into a similar location increases the po

  • Another robot... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by geoswan ( 316494 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @06:53PM (#7749128) Journal
    Maybe it is worth comparing the design of this robot [af.mil] to the Indian one. It was discussed in this slashdot thread entitled Inspection Microsat Tested In Orbit [slashdot.org].
  • There is a *lot* of crap out there. I has occured to me of a way to do something about it. Im thinking a space mirror, this would be put in earth orbit, it would reflect sunlight tangentially in earth orbit, this would heat up the smaller thing like paint bits and shards of meta and put them lower into the atmosphere and cause them to deorbit and burnup.
  • You can't tell me that no one else thought of Quark [globalcrossing.net] when they saw this story?

    Hmmm... Now that Ronald Moore is done with the Battlestar Galactica reimagining, maybe he can turn his mind to this forgotten classic sci-fi of the '70's... Imagine what he could do with Betty I and Betty II...

  • First they outsource software development to India, now they outsource space-debris cleanup...
  • The IIT Kharagpur is giving practical lessons in electronics and robotics to the childrens residing in the villages in India. These robots are very simplistic in nature and may not be so "high-tech" but is empowering the Indian Kids and finding the "real world" application and not mere fun or educational project.The program is called Build Robots Create Science BRiCS [iitk.ac.in]

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