Debris Fields And Kerbal Kessler Syndrome

[Mark Kerbin]

As I was launching another of my totally unreasonably large rockets, I happened to click on the debris icon. This resulted in the discovery of a solid (ish) ring of debris around Kerbin. Now I apparently had a good 800 some pieces of debris just sitting in orbits ranging from 72-128 Km, but despite playing for a good few "years" on this save I don't think I have ever run into a single piece of orbiting debris. This may explain why my save took so long to load but.. whatever. The debris field looked something like this;

(My screen shot upload thingy broke so Ill just "borrow" one from google)

^Like that but wider. 

 

Any how, I'm now wondering if I'm just lucky, and if anyone has actually had a mission scuttled by space debris. I'll admit to having created a scenario in which a station got absolutely rekt by a cloud of mini decouplers, but that was done purposefully and much to my enjoyment. 

Also kinda wondering if there's a mod that simulates Kessler syndrome, seeing as KSP refuses to make my life difficult in that way. 

 

Edited March 24, 2018 by Mark Kerbin

[ARS]

Each part that breaks will disappear instead creating more parts, however, an assembly that breaks WILL create a cloud of parts. There's no mod for Kessler syndrome yet, but in an EXTREMELY RARE occurrence of your craft being destroyed by orbital debris and create a cloud of parts, and THAT parts caused your space station on the other side of the planet getting wrecked, the effect is similar enough like Kessler syndrome

Generally though, the game will auto delete the debris if there's too many of them, so no, you can't create artificial Saturn ring with debris

Edited March 24, 2018 by ARS

[GoSlash27]

Wow, that hurts my eyes

I never leave spent stages in orbit, so definitely not a problem for me. I always design my rockets in accordance with their mission phases. When I'm done with a stage, it's set to deorbit or impact with a body.

Best,
-Slashy

[Mark Kerbin]

29 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Wow, that hurts my eyes

I never leave spent stages in orbit, so definitely not a problem for me. I always design my rockets in accordance with their mission phases. When I'm done with a stage, it's set to deorbit or impact with a body.

Best,
-Slashy

I just tend to make a mess. At least until it becomes too expensive in career mode. 

[Zeiss Ikon]

I've got the situation in my current (and only) career where on almost every launch, I see at least one piece of debris come within 100 km of the craft I'm actually flying.  Occasionally, I've had them come withing 30 km (close enough for an actual name display when I point to the little bracket on the screen).

I consider this hazardous, mainly because if I'm ever going to collide with one of these, there'll be effectively no warning unless I happen to be looking toward it as it approaches, and the only way to avoid it even if I spot it is to make a sudden, unplanned burn (bad for dV budgets, might create an unplanned reentry, etc.).  Since I noted this, I've adopted a policy of avoiding creation of debris when possible.  I've got a reliable launcher that will lift craft the mass I'm using most (for the present) almost into LKO, so I finish circularizing with the transfer/service stage, and the booster burns up or crashes/splashes.  Then on return from the Mun or Minmus, I can easily ensure the service stage is dropped into the atmosphere, where it burns up or (a part or two) crashes.

I can't yet do much with modules left over from rescues or debris already in orbit; I think I'm going to have to go ahead and research the Klaw next time I have a batch of science, and adopt a harder policy to capture and deorbit anything that can be reached without jeopardizing the primary mission -- or launch a mission every now and then that has no goal other than to capture and deorbit as much debris as they have dV to reach.

@Mark Kerbin Even though the odds are against a collision, even with your level of debris, it only takes one collision coming out of nowhere to undo hours of design, construction, and testing, possibly also bollixing a contract that winds up costing tens of thousands of and a bunch of prestige.

[Mark Kerbin]

True that^

But I want my explosions darn it!

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Mark Kerbin said:

Any how, I'm now wondering if I'm just lucky

The chances of an actual collision are astronomically remote.  (no pun intended)

• Space is really, really big.
• KSP only models things while you're actually flying them-- otherwise they run on rails and physically can't collide with each other.

Just to keep things in perspective.  A band around Kerbin's equator-- let's say, 100 km north/south, extending from 100km to 200 km altitude-- contains something like 40 million cubic kilometers.  The chance that you'll have a collision with one of a few hundred objects in that space is vanishingly tiny, especially since they're probably likely to have fairly low relative velocities to each other since KSC is on the equator and they're generally not at all oddball inclinations to each other.

I've been playing KSP, a lot, for four years now, and have never made any particular effort to avoid space debris, and have never once had a debris collision.  It just doesn't happen.

[klesh]

Manley did a video ages ago.  For debris coming at you from the opposite direction, the game is not fast enough to calculate a collision.  I suppose if you were going at some other angle such that the collision was slow enough, you might run into something and have it actually hit.  

 

 

[Topside08]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

There's no mod for Kessler syndrome yet

Actually, there is a mod for that.

 

 

[TheKSPBeginner]

23 minutes ago, Snark said:

-snip-

• KSP only models things while you're actually flying them-- otherwise they run on rails and physically can't collide with each other.

-snip-

Or if you're near a debris.

[Topside08]

9 minutes ago, TheKSPBeginner said:

Or if you're near a debris.

Or if using a mod that extends the physics range

 

[Vkihyone]

Whats funny is I decided to make a rocket that would simulate Kessler syndrome just to see how long it took for the debris to form a ring, the results were scary.

This was the initial design.

 

Here is the initial debris cloud.

 

And after only about 4 kerbal days (so around 24 hours) this is the result.

Kinda puts the whole problem in perspective.

[Tex_NL]

6 hours ago, Snark said:

I've been playing KSP, a lot, for four years now, and have never made any particular effort to avoid space debris, and have never once had a debris collision.  It just doesn't happen.

Over the years I've had a few 'close calls' where debris came within physics range.

Once I actually had to move a space station around Mun to a different orbit just to be sure. Counter rotating debris would come close multiple times.

But in general: it doesn't happen.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Marschig]

Just drop upper stages on the suborbital trajectory and circularize the orbit by ship's engines. Then you won't have any debris

[Starwaster]

13 hours ago, Mark Kerbin said:

Any how, I'm now wondering if I'm just lucky, and if anyone has actually had a mission scuttled by space debris. I'll admit to having created a scenario in which a station got absolutely rekt by a cloud of mini decouplers, but that was done purposefully and much to my enjoyment. 

Also kinda wondering if there's a mod that simulates Kessler syndrome, seeing as KSP refuses to make my life difficult in that way. 

 

I have on occasion seen a piece of debris from just such a  field gone whizzing by one of my craft, usually during final stages of its ascent. And by 'whizzing by' I mean close enough to be in visual range and with enough relative velocity that it could have damaged something. The odds are probably slightly better (though still low) than IRL since we telnd to launch more missions into the same orbital plane than in IRL, but I've never actually lost anything. But it's made me more mindful of where my final stages end up and I try to plan for everything to reenter.

Unrelated to your question but still funny story about 'debris'. I once sent some Kerbals on a mission to Duna. Their propulsion stage was: NERV, large tank of propellant and a Sr Clamp-o-Tron. Once in orbit, I detached and sent the lander down to the surface. The command module was equipped with a docking port so I could reconnect to the propulsion stage and come home. Unfortunately, before that happened I went into settings and reduced the amount of debris that the game would allow to exist resulting in my propulsion stage being culled... It hadn't occurred to me that it qualified as debris....  So always put something on your stage that prevents that from happening. (back then that would have meant a probe core... these days even a relay antenna would suffice. And I think 1.4.1's new renaming rules allows you to change how parts get classified if undocked or separated?)

Edit: Oh and I think there used to be such a mod... somewhere.... somewhen.... have to look into it. Do a search, see what you turn up. Search for Kessler and limit it to title only.

9 hours ago, Snark said:

The chances of an actual collision are astronomically remote.  (no pun intended)

• KSP only models things while you're actually flying them-- otherwise they run on rails and physically can't collide with each other.

 

Once they're close enough to be visually seen they're close enough to come off rails  

Edited March 25, 2018 by Starwaster

[ZootinZack]

Jesus Christ... a bit of debris discipline

[bonyetty]

I have a cloud of debris from my shotgun  satellites package in one of my saves. It has an orbit with a pe of about 35km. They give me a fright every time I launch while that are passing over. When they enter physics range boom, boom boom, boom. 

Mmm now I’m thinking potential Mission plot. ???

[CSieg]

I dump stuff everywhere without regard, like a medieval peasant emptying my chamber pot out the window.  Never had any close calls.

Do the random failures mods have a debris collision event?  As fun as an old fuel tank colliding with the space station would be, more likely that a thousand stray bolts (from when Jeb tripped over a tool box) will poke some holes in a solar panel.

[LordFerret]

On 3/24/2018 at 5:44 PM, Mark Kerbin said:

a good 800 some pieces of debris

This may explain why my save took so long to load

I'll take it then you've changed the default debris setting, which is 250 (I think).

[A Soviet Tank]

Once I had a contract to rescue a kerbal in minmus orbit but i was orbiting the wrong way, so I dropped my booster and fired retro until it became prograde. I then started to time warp around to my node and when I was about to burn the booster stage whipped by about a meter from my craft. I almost wet myself.