How would space traffic be realistically handled?

[RainDreamer]

Just something I thought about when I saw this mod. When space flights become more common and commercial space flight is a possibility, how do you think we would manage them?

[Bill Phil]

Something like air traffic I presume. Maybe not.

[RainDreamer]

Well, for once, there might be multiple crafts on parking orbits before they move on to other destinations, not to mention satellites, stations, and other things that occupy available orbital space. Those things gotta be managed differently than on earth where things comes up must also then come down, freeing air space eventually and easier to account for. Multiple crafts trying to rendezvous with one station is also a much more difficult to handle than multiple planes landing on the same airport.

[Bill Phil]

There'll be similarities:

"Flight 13, change vector by 5 degrees to the "X" direction."

It'll be much more difficult, true.

[SargeRho]

Perhaps we'll get space-liners queuing up in trailing and leading orbits near space elevators?

[worir4]

Space Traffic lights XD

[Elthy]

When it gets that common to travel into space most stuff will be automated and you will have computers calculating the optimal routes in coordination with other automated ships. If your electronics fail you will have a bad time, i assume then its the best to fire retrorockets and leave orbit...

[LABHOUSE]

It will be autopilot with everything, and everything have a docking port. The future people/cyborgs/robots/alien-human-hybrids will probably make others get permission to go within 10-100 kilometres of each other.

[cantab]

I expect it would be a mainly automated collision prediction and avoidance system. Before making a manoeuvre you'll file your intended orbital elements and the degree of uncertainty. A computer database will check for any collisions and report back either clearance or no clearance. It'd be too complex for humans to do that with any good lead time, though spacecraft might well have their own radar to look out for nearby stuff.

There won't be much in the way of standard flight-paths in space, it would be too inconvenient I think, and of course everything's constantly changing relative position. Even the simple Earth-Moon trip varies in distance.

[Steambirds]

You know how they have the cops with a whistle who direct traffic? Now it's an astronaut/space cop.

[undercoveryankee]

I expect it would be a mainly automated collision prediction and avoidance system. Before making a manoeuvre you'll file your intended orbital elements and the degree of uncertainty. A computer database will check for any collisions and report back either clearance or no clearance. It'd be too complex for humans to do that with any good lead time, though spacecraft might well have their own radar to look out for nearby stuff.

There won't be much in the way of standard flight-paths in space, it would be too inconvenient I think, and of course everything's constantly changing relative position. Even the simple Earth-Moon trip varies in distance.

I think you're right. Aircraft can be told to hold in a pattern at a waypoint until there's more room on the next leg of their flight plan, or to approach a waypoint at a different altitude or in a slightly different direction. For an orbiting spacecraft that needs to rendezvous with something or reach a mission orbit meeting certain specifications, the space of possible flight paths isn't smooth like it is for aircraft. There are discrete windows where it's possible to do the mission within your delta-v budget, and the window you take will determine the orbits you use.

So each operator of a spacecraft would be responsible to generate a plan that doesn't closely approach anyone else's current orbit or previously filed plan. If two operators file plans that conflict, the first to file gets approved and the other gets told to recalculate around the plan that was approved. You'd have limited ability to move other ships out of the way of a manned ship that declares an emergency, so I'd allow manned ships to to reserve a couple of pre-calculated contingency maneuvers in addition to their planned maneuvers.

Busy orbits like geosynchronous, near major space stations, and typical phasing orbits for rendezvous with busy targets would have limitations on how much time you can spend at those altitude ranges at certain inclinations if it isn't your mission orbit.

For military spacecraft (e.g spy satellites, X-37B) that don't want to publish their orbits, I'd allow them to fly without filing as long as they agree to monitor the database, maneuver to avoid any flight plan that gets filed, and pay fair compensation to anybody on a flight plan who's harmed in any way, subjected to a near miss, or forced to maneuver because of an unlisted flight.

[Bill Phil]

Rendezvous =/= docking. Station keeping will be more common between the larger ships, using smaller craft to transfer over.

[Tommygun]

It might end up looking a bit like NORAD's Space Debris tracking system.

With every launch, landing or rendezvous needing a precise launch/landing window, I'm imagining it will be mostly very predictable and planned out in advance.

Flight plans may possibly be filed several months before flight.

I'm thinking more near future, next 100 years, as I think space flight will still not be an every day thing for the general public.

[EzinX]

Space is 3 dimensional, and the third dimension is not nearly as constrained as it is for aircraft. This means that, except for choke points like specific orbits and approaches to space stations, elevators, etc, the probability of collision is infinitesimal - even if there were billions of spacecraft.

You might not need a space traffic control system for most places in space, just some infrared sensors on all spacecraft that track other contacts for potential collisions.

We wouldn't need air traffic control except right at the airports if all jet aircraft had 360 degree radars and perfect computerized analysis of the resulting signals, either - jets could simply avoid obstacles on their own, and the skies are so vast that there would always be somewhere to go.

[cantab]

That kind of attitude is what leads to crashes. We've already had a major satellite collision, in 2009 between the active Iridium 33 and the inactive but structurally intact Kosmos-2251. We've also had a mid-air collision despite the operation of a system, TCAS, much like what you describe, when one pilot followed the direction from TCAS and the other did not.

"See and avoid" might be a valid approach in sparsely travelled regions of space, such as interplanetary cruising, but not in a busy area. Visual observation will give a degree of uncertainty as to the orbits, even on-spacecraft radar will have a limited time to observe.

[GoSlash27]

Other than specific choke points, there's really no point in space traffic control.

Stations need to guide traffic in their vicinity, and certain orbits need to be deconflicted, but other than that there can be no standard routes. Since everything is on a trajectory, it's not like you can just change directions.

It'd basically be the pilot's job to monitor the collision detection equipment and take evasive maneuvers.

Best,

-Slashy

[Jouni]

Just a guess: A close rendezvous with another craft is the equivalent of pointing a gun at the craft. If the other party doesn't approve, they're allowed to use deadly force to prevent it. As a rule, nobody is allowed to approach space stations or other major craft. If you want to go to a station, you'll make rendezvous with a shuttle operated by the station, and use the shuttle to transfer there.

[shynung]

For smaller ships, maybe, but how about large freighters? Using shuttles to unload/load freighter ships aren't very efficient.

I think there would be some sort of ship-port, where ships dock to the station. This ship-port part would be mounted a distance away from the main station, on a long boom with pipes, conveyors, and walkways/cable cars inside, mounted to the station using quick-release bolts. If a docking mishap happened, the station would simply cut the boom off using the quick-release bolts, so that whatever happened to the boom likely won't affect the station as severely.

In that case, the traffic control would be similar to what we'd see on a seaport.

[Bill Phil]

Just instead of two dimensions, there'll be three.

[RainDreamer]

Just a guess: A close rendezvous with another craft is the equivalent of pointing a gun at the craft. If the other party doesn't approve, they're allowed to use deadly force to prevent it. As a rule, nobody is allowed to approach space stations or other major craft. If you want to go to a station, you'll make rendezvous with a shuttle operated by the station, and use the shuttle to transfer there.

I don't think shooting at things already on a trajectory to you to stop it would be a good idea. Instead of a single object flying at you, you now get a field of debris coming at you. Something like a drone that forcibly attach to the incoming object and launch it boosters to redirect the trajectory should be safer for both parties.

So following this line of thoughts though, how would space traffic be enforced? Would we have space police that will EMP runaway ships and tow them to their space police station?

[Guest]

There will be no authority in space. With Earth governments launching an unannounced "black" missions, and greedy corporations saving on safety and navigation systems, it will be chaos. Like it is now. Luckily, space is big, and collisions are rare.

[YNM]

I think one can simply modify (even by a small amount) one of their six orbital parameters of each craft. I know it'd be fuel-limited but hey, even a few seconds might save you, a few m/s of dV would do it. Just that we need some enormous automated system to continuously calculate it, sending warnings every other time...

But i think space would never be that congested, until we get rings.

[megatiger78]

space traffic? as in STC? no funds for STC. too many space terrorists disrupting traffic.

[xcorps]

There will be no authority in space. With Earth governments launching an unannounced "black" missions, and greedy corporations saving on safety and navigation systems, it will be chaos. Like it is now. Luckily, space is big, and collisions are rare.

When it gets to the point where a traffic control system is needed, there will be an authority to establish doctrine. Get on any ship in the world and sail to any port in the world. Enter that port, and when you meet another ship blow one whistle. The captain of the other ship will understand that you intend to pass port to port, and will maneuver accordingly. You know that regardless of your location, that the red buoys are supposed to be on the starboard side of your ship. You will know that if a sailing vessel approaches you, the sailing vessel has the right of way. You will know without having to look it up that if you see a vessel displaying 2 black balls in a vertical line that the vessel is restricted in it's ability to maneuver. If you are on the high sea in international waters and you see a green light with a white light above it and a white light in front of it but lower than the other that you are looking at the starboard side of a vessel more than 50 meters in length travelling in the direction of the lower light.

A similar rules of the road system will be developed, and there will be an international agency to administer it. There will be a multinational treaty which everyone will sign because...billions wasted in collisions. Insurance goes up. Launch costs go up. Profits go down.

[shynung]

space traffic? as in STC? no funds for STC. too many space terrorists disrupting traffic.

The space station would fund it. Or, at least, their owners will. They wouldn't want to risk losing the station from one navigation error by an errant spacecraft.

Space terrorists wouldn't be plentiful, either. They'd be about as much as airplane terrorists are nowadays, which are rare.