Space Debris: Why did it happen in the first place? Is it still happening?

[Motokid600]

How feasible would it be to develop a group based laser that can strike debris rising over the horizon? Just enough of a nudge to take a piece of debris on a ten year decay to ten weeks.

[fredinno]

24 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

How feasible would it be to develop a group based laser that can strike debris rising over the horizon? Just enough of a nudge to take a piece of debris on a ten year decay to ten weeks.

Pretty feasible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom

[pincushionman]

28 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

How feasible would it be to develop a group based laser that can strike debris rising over the horizon? Just enough of a nudge to take a piece of debris on a ten year decay to ten weeks.

This is a real-life proposal, by the way, and not that far-fetched. It's called a laser broom.

*EDIT* Ninja'd. Darn you, Fred!

Edited March 25, 2016 by pincushionman

[Motokid600]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Pretty feasible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom

No kidding. Well... I guess the debris mustn't be much of an issue otherwise this laser broom would be more popular would it not? How long until something like this is developed?

[fredinno]

27 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

No kidding. Well... I guess the debris mustn't be much of an issue otherwise this laser broom would be more popular would it not? How long until something like this is developed?

A while. I'm betting on the DOD starting on it, it has military use. However, this opens a whole new can of worms, so it'll be a decade or so, maybe.

[Atlas2342]

On 3/23/2016 at 2:52 AM, mikegarrison said:

People leave their trash everywhere they go. Always have.

And always will....

[totalitor]

In near future there may be a simple way to deorbit satellites. This spring or summer Spacex is launching a lot of cubesats, including Finnish satellite Aalto-1. It will demonstrate electrostatic plasma brake, details can be found here:

https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/a/aalto-1#launch

 

[StrandedonEarth]

The problem is that space junk is not considered to be enough of a problem for anyone to want to spend hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars fixing. Most, if not all, launchers take steps to mitigate debris from current launches by de-orbiting spent stages, or 'safing' (venting propellants and disconnecting batteries) what cannot be de-orbited, because that is only a small incremental cost. Only when active satellites are being hit and disabled by debris on an annual basis will the bean-counters finally consider it to be a serious problem. When it becomes cheaper to deal with the problem instead of replacing the satellites. Hopefully before it becomes to risky to launch at all

Ideally, for future launches the upper stage would have a grappler (K.L.A.W.) mechanism that could release the current payload and then grab a large debris object, regardless of whether the target was designed to be grabbed. Of course, this upper stage would need to have enough dV to rendezvous with a debris object and de-orbit it, with enough vector control to hold orientation through an off-balance burn.

Yes, this would basically require a clean-sheet design of an overpowered upper stage to enable an "each one, drop one" strategy. We've reached the point where we try not to add more debris when we launch; now we need to try to remove debris with every launch.

[SlabGizor117]

On 3/27/2016 at 9:53 AM, Atlas2342 said:

And always will....

I want to emphasize the point I made earlier about the intense planning that goes into rocket launches, because I don't want people to have that attitude of the people who supervise those things.  If you haven't read my reply to the post you quoted, please do.

[Atlas2342]

5 hours ago, SlabGizor117 said:

I want to emphasize the point I made earlier about the intense planning that goes into rocket launches, because I don't want people to have that attitude of the people who supervise those things.  If you haven't read my reply to the post you quoted, please do.

Of course, respect for them awesome mission controllers/planners.

On 25/03/2016 at 8:58 AM, SlabGizor117 said:

Weeeelllll, I don't think that's quite fair to the mission planners to say that.  People leave trash everywhere because they don't think about anyone but themselves.  With space missions, it's very much the opposite.  Every single detail and problem is accounted for, which leaves the decision to leave debris in orbit a conscious, deliberate one.  

I was referring to this:

On 25/03/2016 at 8:58 AM, SlabGizor117 said:

Funny story, one time I was with my mom in the car, behind someone at a red light, who opened their door, and dropped their McDonalds togo bag on the road.  I wanted so bad, to get out, grab it, knock on her window, stick the bag in, and say in the most polite voice I could, "Here, you dropped this.  Wouldn't want people running over it!"  I almost did....  And I wish I did now!

PS; You should have....

[wumpus]

On 3/25/2016 at 3:45 PM, fredinno said:

Pretty feasible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom

Note that this only works for LEO.  Not so much because of focusing (all that probably limits it as well), but because it only acts as an "avoid hitting a particular satellite in a single flight".  The assumption is that before the debris has a chance to hit anything else, it has long since burned up in the atmosphere.

I can't imagine the cost of the laser broom vs. the cost of simply using on board guidance to simply move out of the way.  I'd expect the laser broom would presumably be developed to deflect space junk from hitting defunct satellites.  I'd have to wonder how difficult it would be to build "deorbiting cubesats" that could latch* on to a satellite and de-orbit one.

* latch is the key word.  I doubt that iron-based materials are sufficiently popular that a magnet would work.  Adhesives might be interesting if you attached during the day (temperature shifts would make things hairy).  "grabbers" just seem out of the question, but might work for certain antenna types (can't see a general solution based on grabbers.

[fredinno]

3 hours ago, wumpus said:

Note that this only works for LEO.  Not so much because of focusing (all that probably limits it as well), but because it only acts as an "avoid hitting a particular satellite in a single flight".  The assumption is that before the debris has a chance to hit anything else, it has long since burned up in the atmosphere.

I can't imagine the cost of the laser broom vs. the cost of simply using on board guidance to simply move out of the way.  I'd expect the laser broom would presumably be developed to deflect space junk from hitting defunct satellites.  I'd have to wonder how difficult it would be to build "deorbiting cubesats" that could latch* on to a satellite and de-orbit one.

* latch is the key word.  I doubt that iron-based materials are sufficiently popular that a magnet would work.  Adhesives might be interesting if you attached during the day (temperature shifts would make things hairy).  "grabbers" just seem out of the question, but might work for certain antenna types (can't see a general solution based on grabbers.

Latching cubesats would need a dedicated propulsion system, solar panels, spacecraft bus, grappling mechanism, de-orbiting mechanism (solar sails are great at this)...

The laser broom is by far the most feasible and economical.

 

And LEO is the area where space debris is a big problem. MEO has far less satellites, and GEO sats are moved to a disposal orbit.

Elliptical transfer orbits are more difficult.