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[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

So I heard about this somewhere but havnt seen any links to it.
Apparently some countries are developing a space drone with a few external arms designed to grab space junk and then drop itself back to earth in an attempt to clean up all the debris floating out there, because it's a serious hazard to anything that stays up here for extended periods of time

[GiglameshDespair]

The Swiss - or rather, Swiss Space Systems and the EPFL - are developing the CleanSpace series of drones. CleanSpace One will latch onto a defunct satellite and bomb it into the atmosphere so they both burn up. It's a good idea, though seems like it'd be expensive.
Link.
It's not a country funded effort by the looks of it (as far as universities aren't country funded) but I like the idea.

Kessler Syndrome is a definite threat. There's what, 17000 hazardous objects being tracked in Earth orbit? So something trying to reduce that is welcome.

[Eagleon]

The Swiss - or rather, Swiss Space Systems and the EPFL - are developing the CleanSpace series of drones. CleanSpace One will latch onto a defunct satellite and bomb it into the atmosphere so they both burn up. It's a good idea, though seems like it'd be expensive.
Link.
It's not a country funded effort by the looks of it (as far as universities aren't country funded) but I like the idea.

Kessler Syndrome is a definite threat. There's what, 17000 hazardous objects being tracked in Earth orbit? So something trying to reduce that is welcome.

I've always wondered about inflating huge masses of aerogel or similar in eccentric orbits to absorb debris in a way that doesn't produce more (something less friable than aerogel maybe?). It seems like a losing battle to do it all robotically, especially if you have to drop the drone back into the atmosphere afterwards. Also that seems like a bad idea when you could maybe just change its orbit to reentry, let go, and change it back sans debris. Maybe laser a bit of the debris for more propellant? I dunno I have bad ideas about space sometimes.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

You can't really change the orbit of spent stages from rockets
Doing it robotically would be expensive and time consuming but it would be a guarantee of the junk being gone.
Lasers might work for smaller debris if you can get lasers onto already orbiting stations specifically for that purpose but larger objects would take forever to destroy that way, but I could be wrong because I don't know much about lasers

[Eagleon]

You can't really change the orbit of spent stages from rockets
Doing it robotically would be expensive and time consuming but it would be a guarantee of the junk being gone.
Lasers might work for smaller debris if you can get lasers onto already orbiting stations specifically for that purpose but larger objects would take forever to destroy that way, but I could be wrong because I don't know much about lasers

I was getting at the drone ionizing a portion of the debris' mass, very gradually using a laser pumped by solar-charged capacitors, and using that as propellant in an ion thruster. You'd have to adapt it to use lots of different materials, which I'm not sure is feasible because I'm not an engineer, but you wouldn't be wasting the drone (or at least until the storage media gets eaten through by vaporized metals), and you could keep hold of the debris long enough to adjust orbit to the next target. Of course, releasing satellites that are predators for other satellites may be worse than a kessler syndrome, but maybe they could just aggregate stuff together instead. That's useful, if annoying when the ISS gets dragged into a space-dustpile by little space-janitors.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Oh thank god I wasn't the only one who thought they would be addorable

[wierd]

You can't really change the orbit of spent stages from rockets
Doing it robotically would be expensive and time consuming but it would be a guarantee of the junk being gone.
Lasers might work for smaller debris if you can get lasers onto already orbiting stations specifically for that purpose but larger objects would take forever to destroy that way, but I could be wrong because I don't know much about lasers

Lasers are very energy inefficient, and the risk of reflections would be high.

better off shooting a netgun with small spheres containing a retracting cable strung through the net's periphery, attached at the corners (or equidistantly around the periphery) of the net would probably work better, but shooting the net would impose a thrust against the launching vehicle. it would need a good suply of station keeping propellant.

since there is no air up there to speak of, drag isnt as much of a concern, so shooting the net fuly deployed (open), with very tiny netting would work just fine.  when the net hits the target debris field, the little spheres on the periphery engage, and sinch up the cable strung between them, closing up the net like a sack. now instead of hundreds of small objects, you have a large aggregated one that you can more easily deorbit.

[Eagleon]

Oh thank god I wasn't the only one who thought they would be addorable

They would have to be sufficiently adorable to charm Putin, at least, because all of his tacticians would be screaming at him that they pose a threat to their satellites. So little dog-tongues hanging out the side and bugged-out eyes, at bare minimum.

[Rez]

Are there engineers/scholars/entrepreneurs suggesting orbiting debris lasing satellites?  What I have read has suggested this technique would be Earth-based and focused on slowing things down, not vaporizing them entirely.  That also has the bonus of not needing to be in orbit to get debris out of orbit.  Sure, it's inefficient, but inefficiency isn't such a large problem on Earth where heat-sinking is comparatively trivial and there aren't nearly so many constraints on power generation.

I suspect a capture-type system would end up being more energy expensive, because it needs lots of fuel at all stages of the mission.  You need fuel to launch the systems, the capture mechanism needs fuel to intercept debris and push it out of orbit.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

How would you slow something down that is in or it with lasers? Wouldn't they just speed up again because they are orbiting? Or do I just not know anything?
((I'm not very well educated on this stuff, I'm a guy that wants to be a nuclear or aerospace engineer so zero g stuff is not my forte))

[WillowLuman]

Are there engineers/scholars/entrepreneurs suggesting orbiting debris lasing satellites?  What I have read has suggested this technique would be Earth-based and focused on slowing things down, not vaporizing them entirely.  That also has the bonus of not needing to be in orbit to get debris out of orbit.  Sure, it's inefficient, but inefficiency isn't such a large problem on Earth where heat-sinking is comparatively trivial and there aren't nearly so many constraints on power generation.

I suspect a capture-type system would end up being more energy expensive, because it needs lots of fuel at all stages of the mission.  You need fuel to launch the systems, the capture mechanism needs fuel to intercept debris and push it out of orbit.

There's the legal problem there of essentially developing an anti-sat laser. Not to mention the engineering problems of lasing through that much atmosphere while still retaining the power to vaporize.

How would you slow something down that is in or it with lasers? Wouldn't they just speed up again because they are orbiting? Or do I just not know anything?
((I'm not very well educated on this stuff, I'm a guy that wants to be a nuclear or aerospace engineer so zero g stuff is not my forte))

When you strike something with a sufficiently powerful laser, the surface is vaporized and ablated. Striking the side of an object against the direction of its orbit would cause the resulting vaporized debris to propel it the other way.

[PTTG??]

Earth-based lasers wouldn't work. Too much air in the way. Even without wasted air heating, you've got to deal with atmospheric twinkling.

A laser satellite could just have large capacitor banks and be solar powered. It could use tiny pulses to effectively produce ad-hoc Ablative Laser Propulsion.

Cryxis, I recommend KSP for an introduction.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I e tried to get my hands on KSP but steam doesn't work for me (I hate it and havnt had good experience with it and my dad doesn't want me using it) and I don't know how else to get it.



Also once the object is slowed down, I was asking if it would just speed up again because it's in orbit? I don't think things sitting that close to earth just stop moving if they get slowed down. Would it start orbiting in the direction the laser was pushing it?

[GiglameshDespair]

From Squad themselves.

[WillowLuman]

Ninja'd!

You can get KSP directly from their website, no steam involved.

Think of an orbit kind of like a battery for kinetic energy. The more energy, the more speed, and the higher the orbit. If you slow down an object, its orbit dips lower, and slow it down enough, it will start brushing against the atmosphere, which will slow it down further due to drag and eventually cause it to deorbit.

Basically, objects try to fall straight down, but orbit is what happens when they're moving sideways fast enough to miss the planet when they do. They keep falling on this "miss," until gravity slingshots them back towards what they're orbiting around and they miss again.