How do YOU manage your debris?

[Nimaci]

I have a strict nil-debris policy, which with practice has become an instinctive part of my design and planning process.

It does wonders for my pedanticism

[lobsterbark]

I just don't make at debris.

[Colonel_Panic]

I only have one piece of debris in orbit, so I just deal with it. If it gets out of hand, I will find a way to remove it. Orbital trash collector? Or should I say, destroyer?

From personal experience, orbital trash destroyers end up producing more, smaller, harder to clean up pieces of orbital trash. It's pretty easy to make a collector though with a small rocket can, some RCS, a basket for small junk, and a 'claw' made out of lander legs to 'grab' bigger stuff. If you give it efficient enough engines, you can even 'collect' multiple pieces of debris one at a time, decelerate enough to drop them on a suborbital trajectory, then re-accelerate to return to orbit and grab another one. I've been contemplating starting a small 'fleet' of re-usable trash collectors that just hang out docked with my OFDs in case I need them, since my OFDs are conveniently dispersed to be within easy reach of LKO and all of my commonly used parking orbits.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Colonel_Panic

[MBobrik]

From personal experience, orbital trash destroyers end up producing more, smaller, harder to clean up pieces of orbital trash. It's pretty easy to make a collector though with a small rocket can, some RCS, a basket for small junk, and a 'claw' made out of lander legs to 'grab' bigger stuff.

Agree. tried to get rid of it by firing stuff into them and just created an order of magnitude bigger mess. Technically, it should have worked, but collisions are implemented so that out of 2 colliding pieces, one always survives unharmed, so you just can't reduce the amount of debris that way.

[Colonel_Panic]

Agree. tried to get rid of it by firing stuff into them and just created an order of magnitude bigger mess. Technically, it should have worked, but collisions are implemented so that out of 2 colliding pieces, one always survives unharmed, so you just can't reduce the amount of debris that way.

One of the dumbest things I've done was deploy an ASAT-style missile to disintegrate a defunct satellite booster in LKO. The kill vehicle and booster were each made up of around a dozen parts, and after a successful intercept, there were 23 new pieces of debris scattered around my 73km parking orbit.

[Eric S]

A little bit of the first three options. If I can drop something suborbital, I do. If I take it into orbit, I'll usually have a probe engine on it with enough fuel to deorbit, or sepratrons. For those cases that that doesn't happen (especially for the amount of debris around the launch pad on my testing save), I've got a powershell script that deletes all the debris.

[bonyetty]

At about 2100m/s I will shut down the engines of my last stage by pressing x, then stage with with the space bar regardless of how much fuel is left and circularize with payload.

[J0hnsmine]

I use haystack mod and don't care.

UNTIL MY SPACE DEBRIS COMES BACK TO SAY HI....

uh-oh.

[hyperformer]

what I do is deorbit it with loads of sepratrons and hope it lands in a comical way(never does, sadly)

[Rockhem]

My newest in-space-construction vehicle , leaves 12 pieces of debris in orbit around Kerbin and leaves a uncrewed, uncontrollable lander, around the body it is landing on. So for that 3 section ship it leaves 13 pieces of debris.

I routinely see debris come within loading range. (2.5 km)

[Echostatic]

I made a garbage ship. I'm about to post a thread about it's test flight actually. Here it can be seen retrieving an old stack separator via electromagnet. The doors close behind it.

[Nuke]

i use lazors

[SDIR]

I usually go to extreme lengths to make sure my debris going only into a sub-orbital trajectory. If it stays, I usually disable it, although now that I have learned docking I might add docking ports to parts and re-enter them with a trash collector.

[M5000]

Currently, I just leave persistent debris off.

After .20 comes out with its filtering options, I plan on leaving everything everywhere for the sake of hoping that one stray piece of debris comes and destroys something I worked for days on.

Is it bad I actually /hope/ something gets destroyed by a wayward decoupler or something?

[angrysheep]

I leave it there unless it's close to my space station or something. If it has fuel i try to salvage it.

[Frederf]

I have an OCD obsession with removing debris. Unfortunately I've killed several successful flights trying to manually edit the persistence file. I design my missions to free return or otherwise destroy debris (usually not into a non-kerbin body) but some failed launches seem to leave things even after end flight.

[Colonel_Panic]

Behold my new invention: The 7R45H-CN

http://herpnderp.info/7R45H-CN.craft

Warranty void if used to hold trash. Trash-co assumes no liability for any damage or explosions caused by the use of this craft. May contribute to space-bourne debris.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Colonel_Panic

[Reavermyst]

usually I'll release stacks before making my orbit. But for flights to the Mun or other places, I'll try to release the stack on a collision course or get a retriever to collect it using the KAS mod and throw the payload at the Mun, because... who's going to notice an extra crater?

[Tristavius]

I don't deal with it, I disable persistant space debris.

But only due to being abroad on my laptop which really doesn't need the extra strain of all the debris. Prior to that (and still now technically) I stick a probe core on just about everything other than the very earliest stages that will be dropped in-atmosphere. I then jettison very nearly empty tanks and later control and deorbit using the core.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Technical question: does a lot of debris contribute to lag or any practical irritations? Trying to select what I actually wanted to select as a target became such a problem I had to put my station at a ridiculously high orbit just to target it for rendezvous. My two favorite parking orbits are getting pretty full. I usually use a few retro firing solids on my last stage to back it off & due orbit it, but these NovaPunch parts are so strong they're actually surviving and scattering debris on land.

[Colonel_Panic]

Technical question: does a lot of debris contribute to lag or any practical irritations? Trying to select what I actually wanted to select as a target became such a problem I had to put my station at a ridiculously high orbit just to target it for rendezvous. My two favorite parking orbits are getting pretty full. I usually use a few retro firing solids on my last stage to back it off & due orbit it, but these NovaPunch parts are so strong they're actually surviving and scattering debris on land.

I recommend haystack to select ships in orbit. I honestly have trouble selecting the right one even if there's as few as three ships on a given orbital range. With the dozens I have now, it's nearly impossible.

if your mod parts are surviving a terminal velocity impact, then your mod is broken.

[Flixxbeatz]

SetPersistentDebris=0

what manage?

[Merinsan]

Most of my builds have methods for deorbiting stages that get into orbit, such as RCS or retro rockets (sepratrons). However they are not always successful. I will at times select debris and end the flight when this is the case. Occasionally I get bugged debris which requires me to set the debris count to 0. I hope not to do this anymore, because I have some "debris" that is part of a mission.

I am now planning a ship to remove debris from Kerbal orbit.

[Colonel_Panic]

Most of my builds have methods for deorbiting stages that get into orbit, such as RCS or retro rockets (sepratrons). However they are not always successful. I will at times select debris and end the flight when this is the case. Occasionally I get bugged debris which requires me to set the debris count to 0. I hope not to do this anymore, because I have some "debris" that is part of a mission.

I am now planning a ship to remove debris from Kerbal orbit.

you can always make 'debris' a ship by adding a probe core to it in the VAB, so you won't lose control of it during a mission.

This method is also highly useful for deorbiting stages. Just attach a probe core to the final ascent stage, and once you're in orbit, decouple it, switch to it, and retroburn to deorbit. The just switch back again and you're all set.

I generally put a probe core and a clamp-o-tron jr on the final stage of all my big lifters. If they have a good amount of spare fuel at the end, you can turn them into an OFD, and just deorbit when you're done with it.

[Colonel_Panic]

Newer, Bigger: 7R45H-7RK

http://herpnderp.info/7R45H-7RK.craft