Europe In Talks With SpaceX On Tackling Space Junk (reuters.com) 37
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Space Agency is in talks with SpaceX about the possibility of Elon Musk's space venture joining an international charter designed to reduce a growing swarm of debris in space, Director General Josef Aschbacher told Reuters. The 22-nation agency is spearheading one of several efforts to roll back the mass of space junk swirling round the planet from past missions that poses a risk to active satellites. Aschbacher said 110 countries or entities have joined ESA's Zero Debris charter, which aims to stop any new orbital garbage being generated by 2030.
Asked whether SpaceX, whose satellites now make up some two thirds of spacecraft active in low Earth orbit, had signed up, Aschbacher said: "Not yet, but we are in discussion with them... This is a charter that keeps evolving and... we will keep raising the topics because they are so fundamental." [...] There are currently 18,897 pieces of trackable space junk in orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks such objects. Space debris and junk are often used interchangeably, but some consider space junk to include inactive payloads and rocket bodies as well as debris, or errant shards of broken satellites. There are no international laws on debris, but countries and space agencies have begun in recent years to devise proposals and national rules for tackling the problem.
Asked whether SpaceX, whose satellites now make up some two thirds of spacecraft active in low Earth orbit, had signed up, Aschbacher said: "Not yet, but we are in discussion with them... This is a charter that keeps evolving and... we will keep raising the topics because they are so fundamental." [...] There are currently 18,897 pieces of trackable space junk in orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks such objects. Space debris and junk are often used interchangeably, but some consider space junk to include inactive payloads and rocket bodies as well as debris, or errant shards of broken satellites. There are no international laws on debris, but countries and space agencies have begun in recent years to devise proposals and national rules for tackling the problem.
Not sure how this would help (Score:5, Interesting)
SpaceX's Starlink satellites are in such a low orbit, they deorbit in just a few years, with five years being design time for deorbit, so they're not relevant. About the only change I can think of is that SpaceX would no longer launch satellites that participate in the scheme, and I don't see how that would make any business sense for a company that needs the explosive growth and has made a point of drawing all the international customers from Arianespace and Roskosmos.
Or is there something I'm missing that would change?
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politics. Not having anywhere near current technology launchers and failure to reach agreement to at least try to catch up, what do we do: PR. Sounds good the effort that's about it.
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Sure, but this isn't just a political project. It's in fact started in the aerospace engineering circles, and made it to political level from ground up. Because there is an actual need to reduce amount of debris around the planet to ensure that future launches remain viable and satellites can be put into needed orbits without expecting them to die to a collision within a short period of time.
Re:Not sure how this would help (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with you on Starlink. The only two other options I could see make sense for negotiations are:
-SpaceX was the first company that made rocketry (almost) reusable but their rockets can still be discarded for extra boost if that's in the interest of the payload's profile, and even then, there is still second-stage debris. Also, they are developing an even larger payload capable reusable rocket with the upper stage (hopefully) re-usable as well.. Maybe the EU wants to push for even less, or preferably no rocketry-related space debris and wants SpaceX's input how it can be avoided or coorporation?
-The development of a space debris cleanup program for which it wants to use SpaceX's services because they are currently the 'cleanest' launch provider.
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What if something goes wrong though? Say there is an on-orbit accident that creates debris. Should the creator be responsible for cleaning them up? Should there be a risk assessment before a mission starts to evaluation the potential debris that could be created and the possible methods of clean-up?
Something is going to have to change in the near future, with more mega constellations going up, satellites in general getting much cheaper, and so many commercial players getting involved. The old system of clai
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(A ledger in the conventional sense of a written or computer record, not anything to do with crypto).
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Should the creator be responsible for cleaning them up?
If your factory has an accident and dumps cyanide into the local water table should you be responsible for the cleanup? Of course. Why would that be any different off-planet? Orbital paths are a resource which should be available to all, if your satellite blows up like the Boeing one did the other day you've just fucked that resource up for everyone else and almost certainly spewed debris which will intersect a bunch of other orbits.
Sensors for almost everything imaginable are cheap and light now as is o
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Agreed, but currently they just say "oops" and do nothing about it. Actually that's not entirely true, I recall that someone was fined in the US this year for a failed launch that became space junk.
Ideally we would develop some technology to clean up junk, and the fund operating it with mandatory insurance for people putting stuff in orbit.
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>EU will require contractors launching satellites on behalf of member states or businesses with interests in Europe to be responsible when it comes to space junk.
Problem here is irrelevancy. EU already has put its entire heft behind keeping Arianespace alive, after SpaceX devoured it's foreign customer base. So any such launches would go to Arianespace anyway for geopolitical reasons.
And the rest will just have an entity outside EU deal with the issue if such a legislation arose. This isn't even particul
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"-SpaceX was the first company that made rocketry (almost) reusable but their rockets can still be discarded for extra boost if that's in the interest of the payload's profile, and even then, there is still second-stage debris."
No, the second stage isn't reusable, but it falls back to Earth. Unless something goes wrong, there's a graveyard zone in the Pacific where anything that survives reentry is supposed to come down. I believe that's true of boosters that are expended, too. The exception would be mis
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I agree with you on Starlink. The only two other options I could see make sense for negotiations are:
-SpaceX was the first company that made rocketry (almost) reusable but their rockets can still be discarded for extra boost if that's in the interest of the payload's profile, and even then, there is still second-stage debris. Also, they are developing an even larger payload capable reusable rocket with the upper stage (hopefully) re-usable as well.. Maybe the EU wants to push for even less, or preferably no rocketry-related space debris and wants SpaceX's input how it can be avoided or coorporation?
-The development of a space debris cleanup program for which it wants to use SpaceX's services because they are currently the 'cleanest' launch provider.
You're second point is the first thing that came to mind for me. SpaceX is a semi-decent resource to get input in to how to prevent more space debris, but they also have the fastest turn-around on launches, with the least amount of "dump and run" of any other launch company. It's entirely possible that the brains in the operation, the engineers, some of which are known to have some further development ideas for space exploration, may either already have, or can be encouraged to have ideas on cleanup for LEO
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There are questions about dumping so many satellites into the upper atmosphere: https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]
SpaceX also launches other kinds of satellites, and as it expands towards the moon and Mars there will be more debris in longer lived orbits to contend with.
It's likely that at some point the EU will require contractors launching satellites on behalf of member states or businesses with interests in Europe to be responsible when it comes to space junk. It would be best for SpaceX to participate ea
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FUD. "There are questions" about everything.
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>EU will require contractors launching satellites on behalf of member states or businesses with interests in Europe to be responsible when it comes to space junk.
Problem here is irrelevancy. EU already has put its entire heft behind keeping Arianespace alive, after SpaceX devoured it's foreign customer base. So any such launches would go to Arianespace anyway for geopolitical reasons.
And the rest will just have an entity outside EU deal with the issue if such a legislation arose.
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EU laws don't work like that, as many US tech companies have discovered. Bullshit shell companies and contracting others to do your dirty work doesn't get you out of your obligations.
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I don't think this is an irrelevant aspirational thing. It seems to be more of a "we need to get common rules for everyone so this common resource remains functional and available to everyone. And we need to start somewhere".
So getting a deal like this with as many launch providers as possible does make sense. It's just that I don't understand what SpaceX gets out of it unless they're in talks of compensation for following some cleaner launch procedures for their higher orbits launches.
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"The company reached its 400th orbital flight with the NROL-167 mission out of Vandenberg this week. Just as impressive, SpaceX launched a Falcon vehicle for the 100th time this year on the OneWeb mission, having already broken las
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You don't see how it makes business sense to keep in good standing with the government they want to get business from? Do you work for Apple?
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While that is certainly the case, EU has declared itself hostile to SpaceX quite a while ago when competition from it started eating Aranespace's profits. It's now utterly devoured them regardless, and EU alongside France is holding Areanespace alive for national security and prestige reasons at this point. SpaceX is basically in the league of its own in the international launch market now due to reusable boosters, and no one else is cost competitive. Arianespace and Roskosmos have been the biggest losers,
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I think Space Junk is the new Amazon Prime series based on Space Balls
Don't even joke about that. After what they've done to Tolkien they have no right to touch something as holy as Brooks' brilliant take-down of sci-fi. Some things should still be sacred.
Isn't Josh Gadd involved in the sequel right now? Or did that get shit-canned?
So much lift. (Score:2)
With the obscene amount of life that Starship can provide, I ponder if just a HUGE mass in a decaying orbit might do the trick. I mean, sure people might complain that it's clearing everything out of orbit but those people are just being too picky. ;)
On a serious note, there are debris clouds that need to be cleaned up for which we don't have anything developed. A lot of focus has been on lightweight solutions due to the lift cost but that it's come down so much, there may be a budget to send something suit
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The problem is that the debris is all in different orbits, so you'll be lucky to be able to get more than one piece per mission.
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Not a lot of sats explode into debris clouds, so maybe that's a fair trade.
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"Blob of gel" to clean up space junk runs into the same issue as "nets": relative velocities. You'd pretty much have to match orbit with the debris before approaching it or else the stuff is just going to blast right through your catcher at several hundred kilometers per hour (and now you've got nasty blobs of gel zooming around in random directions...) If you're going to match orbits anyway a claw or scoop is probably adequate for small objects, and the ability to attach a tether to passively accelerate
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You'd pretty much have to match orbit with the debris before approaching it or else the stuff is just going to blast right through your catcher at several hundred kilometers per hour
However, if it's massive enough then the exit velocity will be a quickly decaying orbit which is the point.
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Then you're left with nasty blobs of shrapnel goo floating around, not sure how much of an improvement that is.
Voluntary self-regulation (Score:2)
Simple solution (Score:2)
Develop a system for removing debris. Prioritize the debris that is up there. All new space missions must pay into a fund to remove debris, based on the level of risk of creating new debris. So not much for very low orbits, but a lot for high orbits. Then start removing debris. If the problem keeps getting worse, increase the required contributions.
Never going to happen (Score:2)
As long as the EU keeps threatening Musk with SpaceX fines over their opinions on the X platform, there is zero chance he does any kind of EU appeasement at all. Why would he when all it would lead to is more fines?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
At this point it is looking increasingly likely the EU is going to have to seek out alternative, more expensive and less reliable, launch partners to get any of their stuff into orbit.
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Ariane Space only came about after United States Department of Defense vetoed some of European's military satellite launch in the 70s. They decided they needed their own sovereign launch capability without needing to get permission from another entity. Sovereign launch capability has NEVER been cheaper than the cheapest alternative. Ariane was able to catch a wave of GEO satellite replacement and during the downtime for Space Shuttle during the heyday of Ariane 5.
Even if SpaceX can drop the launch price
Not removing existing junk (Score:2)
" ESA's Zero Debris charter, which aims to stop any new orbital garbage being generated by 2030". I assume this means that the charter members would incorporate an onboard de-orbit mechanism with anything they launch. No talk there of cleaning up existing orbital debris, which seems like a very hard problem.