Space Junk Successfully Captured In Orbit For the First Time (with Video) (surrey.ac.uk) 66
"The Surrey Space Center successfully used a net to capture a piece of artificial space junk in orbit for the first time in history on Sunday," writes Slashdot reader dmoberhaus. "The video was just released Wednesday and is quite stunning."
"Not only does the net look cool as hell, it's addressing a major problem for the future of space exploration," reports Motherboard: The test was carried about by the RemoveDEBRIS satellite, an experimental space debris removal platform built by an international consortium of space companies and university research centers. There are tens of thousands of pieces of fast-moving space junk in orbit, which range from the centimeter-scale all the way to entire rocket stages. Some of these pieces are moving faster than a bullet and all of them pose a serious danger to other satellites and crewed capsules... Removing this junk from orbit is particularly challenging because of the various sizes of the debris, its erratic tumbling motion, and the fact that some pieces are moving as fast as 30,000 miles per hour.
The successful experiment follows six years of Earth-based testing, according to a professor at the lead research institution, the Surrey Space Centre.
"While it might sound like a simple idea, the complexity of using a net in space to capture a piece of debris took many years of planning, engineering and coordination."
"Not only does the net look cool as hell, it's addressing a major problem for the future of space exploration," reports Motherboard: The test was carried about by the RemoveDEBRIS satellite, an experimental space debris removal platform built by an international consortium of space companies and university research centers. There are tens of thousands of pieces of fast-moving space junk in orbit, which range from the centimeter-scale all the way to entire rocket stages. Some of these pieces are moving faster than a bullet and all of them pose a serious danger to other satellites and crewed capsules... Removing this junk from orbit is particularly challenging because of the various sizes of the debris, its erratic tumbling motion, and the fact that some pieces are moving as fast as 30,000 miles per hour.
The successful experiment follows six years of Earth-based testing, according to a professor at the lead research institution, the Surrey Space Centre.
"While it might sound like a simple idea, the complexity of using a net in space to capture a piece of debris took many years of planning, engineering and coordination."
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Nice catch.... (Score:3)
But now what? Looks like they just added to the mass of the trash.
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Deploy an air brake, increase drag, deorbit both.
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And where's the video of that? It's like one of those free videos that end before the real action starts.
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But now what? Looks like they just added to the mass of the trash.
According to TFA they're testing out several other technologies, then they're going to deorbit the mass, destroying it in the atmosphere.
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But now what? Looks like they just added to the mass of the trash.
Oh, you thought this was to clean up space junk?
All your satellite are belong to us.
Language (Score:2)
We need better language to discuss these things in the lay media. Or maybe use the language we have better.
Yeah it sounds awesome and scary to say "moving as fast as 30,000 miles per hour!" (gasp) but relative to what? If I am in the same orbit it is moving as "slow as 0 miles per hour!" But that isn't scary enough to say.
What I would like to have heard is some sort of detail about what types of launches and deployments are at risk. Maybe list desirable orbits that would be problematic. But of
Re:Language (Score:5, Informative)
nothing in orbit around the earth can go 30,000 MPH with respect to the ground though, that's some serious rounding! just over 25,000 MPH is the max, otherwise it's leaving
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nothing in orbit around the earth can go 30,000 MPH with respect to the ground though, that's some serious rounding! just over 25,000 MPH is the max, otherwise it's leaving
Even with an elliptical orbit at perigee? Or does escape velocity still apply regardless?
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Yeah, I was going to post that, but you beat me to it.
I wonder if they meant 30,000 km/hr. That would be just about right for a very low altitude satellite.
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Just because you are at the same distance from the planet as another piece of matter does not mean you are in the same orbit. Something more elliptical when you cross paths may be quite an encounter.
Or it could be in the same orbit, but going the other way. Wham!
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It just makes it seem like they're trying to make something whic
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I like to explain it like trapeze artists on swings.
One of them wants to let go of their swing, and do a flip, and then grab the arms of the other one on the other swing. They're both going to have to be at the right place and moving in just the right direction to do it.
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Typical, the US makes most of the mess (Score:1, Troll)
And the rest of the world has to fix it....
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One other notable piece of information is that the US Space Command is the only group capable of locating, tracking, and classification of orbital debris over a certain size.
Why is it notable? It wasn't done for altruistic purposes, it was created so that not only space junk is tracked, but also everyone else satellites and nukes of course.
Not sure about the US funding it though, but if you have a source that says otherwise then I stand corrected.
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As for the US "making most of the mess," yeah - and the "rest of the world" has for a long time been happily making use of the stuff we've put in orbit. Let me guess: you'd like to see the rest of the world permanently eclipse space activity, and then ignore the wake that all of that activity
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The "rest of the world" is increasingly adding to the junk, including things like Chinese tests of anti-satellite weapons leaving clouds of shrapnel where there used to be just one old dead satellite. Thanks, world.
I think the Chinese wanted to be like the US, they beat you on carbon emissions, now they beat you on space junk in one go.
Next, is aircraft carriers, although they are pretty well considered obsolete now, so it is probably not worthwhile going after that feather.
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Depends on the kind of war. In a war with a country like Iraq, Iran, Syria...or just about any country except China or Russia, you're absolutely right. If a shooting war started with China or Russia, a carrier would be...a target. You could probably put all the frigates, DDGs, cruisers etc. you wanted around it, and they could shoot down a bunch of stuff, but one nuke gets through and you're out. (I suspect you were referring to force and influence in the former kind of situation, not the latter, so I'm
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Call it a "nuclear picket" if you'd like. I suspect that if a carrier disappears, somebody's cities will be at serious risk.
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And the rest of the world has to fix it....
"Yes, son . . . it's a mess now . . . but some day . . . we hope to build a home on it!
Had to be done (Score:2)
https://a.disquscdn.com/get?ur... [disquscdn.com]
Might I add.. (Score:2)
Red Dwarf
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More like DS-12 Toybox.
FTA: "Space Junk" they deployed (Score:5, Informative)
They deployed a target for their capture device test. It wasn't found space junk.
Re:FTA: "Space Junk" they deployed (Score:5, Funny)
Anonomous Cowards Debunk NASA! (Score:2)
It's anonymous cowards, all the way down.
Ionization (Score:1)
Has anyone tried ionization?
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Has anyone tried ionization?
Sorry, I don't see Orbital Capture Vehicle in the Sharper Image catalog ...
[ Thinking of Michael [wikia.com] from The Good Place [wikipedia.org] ]
Michael: Okay, I know what you're thinking. Birth is a curse, and existence is a prison. But don't think about that. Don't be sad, you guys. Focus on something great like Drakkar Noir which I am wearing a lot of tonight. Or the Sharper Image Catalog. What can't those guys ionize?
Re: Ionization (Score:1)
Dude, I got three kids from two baby mamas and although tough life does not suck. Perhaps your daddy didn't give you enough hugs. And, Drakkar Noir is awful pewww ugh!
Not what it says on the tin (Score:5, Interesting)
This wasn't even a piece of space junk - it was a object purposely made and launched from the mother satellite. This reduces the complexity by major factors: 1) this junk was of the perfect size and shape to be captured by the net 2) it was nearly matched in speed to the capture net 3) it was at nearly the same velocity (speed and directly) 4) it was in the exact effing orbit. 5) The resulting combination then slowly de-orbits, using up all the equipment.
This means that you have to have one of these gizmos for each piece of junk. If you boost several gizmos at once with one mothership that has all the maneuvering capability, you're going to use up lots of maneuvering fuel to match orbits with each object. If you boost each gizmo separately, you'll need even more boost fuel.
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s/directly/direction/
Re: Not what it says on the tin (Score:1)
Alternative use (Score:4, Insightful)
Next challenges (Score:2)
Re: Next challenges (Score:1)
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Plastic will remove itself soon after we stop adding to it.
Sounds like Planetes (Score:1)
Here's a link to the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] about it.
space junk (Score:2)
What, them Chinese is sailing junks in space too? I seen 'em in the Gulf of Tonkin, but getting them into space...that's a wow.
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Yeah, they blew one of them up and made lot's of little junks floatin' around up there.
It barely worked (Score:1)
From the video it looks like the net began to collapse and almost missed the "debris". Why they didn't introduce a rotation in the net (kind of like a bola) to give it a bit of inherent tension and stability I can't understand. Also I'm not quite sure of the effectiveness of their drag chute idea as most debris are located above 500km where atmospheric drag is pretty low no matter what your surface area is. You might be better off either rigging some kind of electrodynamic tether system (assuming you cou
Great (Score:2)
It's hard to watch the end of that video without thinking, "now what?".