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Slightly off topic, but is there any research going on regarding how to manage all the satellites being pushed into orbit? What happens when these things start

Slightly off topic, but is there any research going on regarding how to manage all the satellites being pushed into orbit? What happens when these things start to collide with other satellites or other trash accumulating in orbit? Is there a practical limit to what we can throw up into orbit before we start to see some adverse consequences?

trothamel 8y ago
It's more regulation than research. The idea of a Kessler cascade (where debris collides with a satellite, causing more debris, causing more collisions) is well known, and there is a lot of work to avoid it. This means everything from eliminating things that might be jettisoned from rockets (like the despin weights on the upper stage of the Delta II), to deorbiting rocket boosters, to designing stages and satellites to fail safely without causing debris. One of the more interesting things is the design for SpaceX's new Starlink satellites, which will be in a low enough orbit that they will deorbit within a few years if one fails. (If not, they can boost themselves into higher orbits.) The other thing that helps is that there are only 43,864 objects large enough to track ever launched, and Only about 18,000 of them are still up there. While that seems like alot, that's the number of people at a baseball game, spread out over an area larger than the surface of the earth. (And even larger in volume.) https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/master.php https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/master.php
JoeDaDude 8y ago
The ESA has written guidelines for the responsible disposal of end-of-life satellites, and created this short film to illustrate the concepts. http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/content/view/embedjw/484820 http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/content/view/embedjw/484820
jandrese 8y ago
The Kessler syndrome is not a concern for geo orbits for a couple of reasons. One is that there is so much more space in geo orbits that the odds of collision are even more rare. The other is that everything in Geo is more or less moving at the same speed in the same direction. Unlike LEO you don't have satellites flying with intersecting orbits.

trothamel 8y ago

It's more regulation than research. The idea of a Kessler cascade (where debris collides with a satellite, causing more debris, causing more collisions) is well known, and there is a lot of work to avoid it. This means everything from eliminating things that might be jettisoned from rockets (like the despin weights on the upper stage of the Delta II), to deorbiting rocket boosters, to designing stages and satellites to fail safely without causing debris. One of the more interesting things is the design for SpaceX's new Starlink satellites, which will be in a low enough orbit that they will deorbit within a few years if one fails. (If not, they can boost themselves into higher orbits.) The other thing that helps is that there are only 43,864 objects large enough to track ever launched, and Only about 18,000 of them are still up there. While that seems like alot, that's the number of people at a baseball game, spread out over an area larger than the surface of the earth. (And even larger in volume.) https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/master.php https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/master.php

JoeDaDude 8y ago

The ESA has written guidelines for the responsible disposal of end-of-life satellites, and created this short film to illustrate the concepts. http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/content/view/embedjw/484820 http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/content/view/embedjw/484820

jandrese 8y ago

The Kessler syndrome is not a concern for geo orbits for a couple of reasons. One is that there is so much more space in geo orbits that the odds of collision are even more rare. The other is that everything in Geo is more or less moving at the same speed in the same direction. Unlike LEO you don't have satellites flying with intersecting orbits.