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Why not incentivize these companies with grant such that they will get the grant if their TO orbit launches _include_ the retrieval of space junk as well on the

Why not incentivize these companies with grant such that they will get the grant if their TO orbit launches _include_ the retrieval of space junk as well on the RETURN back to earth. In order to go up, you have to bring something back.

simonh 6y ago
Rendezvousing with, capturing and then manoeuvring with a captured object is an extremely hard and as yet unsolved problem, although there are some experiment. Also it is only feasible to rendezvous with a target on an almost identical orbit, otherwise the fuel and thrust requirements to reach it very quickly balloon to hugely prohibitive proportions.
- ChickeNES 6y ago
  > Rendezvoing with, capturing and then manoeuvring with another object is an extremely hard and as yet unsolved problem, although there are some experiment Umm...this is utterly wrong, and has been since Gemini 10 in 1966, not to mention Skylab, Mir, ISS
  - nordsieck 6y ago
    > Umm...this is utterly wrong, and has been since Gemini 10 in 1966, not to mention Skylab, Mir, ISS There's a big difference between docking with a spacecraft that is designed to be docked with and capturing a satellite that was not designed to be captured. People are making good progress on this - Northrup Grumman just had a successful life extension satellite mission very recently. But it's far from a mature technology.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Makes no sense. Satellite retrieval is something that you definitely want to run a separate mission for - you don't want to bolt a visit to a completely separate orbit (and then transfer back to reentry) on top of a regular mission. The amount of fuel you need to launch something grows exponentially with the amount of fuel you need at the final stage. Not to mention, if you're thinking of making LEO launches do this, then they'd either have to capture other LEO junk (makes little sense, most of it will deorbit itself), or you'd have to bolt on additional stage, which may very well introduce more junk itself (are people still using explosive bolts for upper stage separation?).
- myself248 6y ago
  So make 'em separate missions, of course. You have to run the retrieval mission and have it succeed before you're granted a launch license for the original mission of putting something up.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Mission-for-mission makes no sense, who decides what mass or orbit of junk counts for your mission? You really have to wait years and set up a whole different mission architecture before you can launch your own project? It's bananas. However a cleanup tax on satellite launches used to fund recovery efforts might work.
sp332 6y ago
The whole article is about how no one knows a good way to do that yet.

simonh 6y ago

Rendezvousing with, capturing and then manoeuvring with a captured object is an extremely hard and as yet unsolved problem, although there are some experiment. Also it is only feasible to rendezvous with a target on an almost identical orbit, otherwise the fuel and thrust requirements to reach it very quickly balloon to hugely prohibitive proportions.

ChickeNES 6y ago
> Rendezvoing with, capturing and then manoeuvring with another object is an extremely hard and as yet unsolved problem, although there are some experiment Umm...this is utterly wrong, and has been since Gemini 10 in 1966, not to mention Skylab, Mir, ISS
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > Umm...this is utterly wrong, and has been since Gemini 10 in 1966, not to mention Skylab, Mir, ISS There's a big difference between docking with a spacecraft that is designed to be docked with and capturing a satellite that was not designed to be captured. People are making good progress on this - Northrup Grumman just had a successful life extension satellite mission very recently. But it's far from a mature technology.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Makes no sense. Satellite retrieval is something that you definitely want to run a separate mission for - you don't want to bolt a visit to a completely separate orbit (and then transfer back to reentry) on top of a regular mission. The amount of fuel you need to launch something grows exponentially with the amount of fuel you need at the final stage. Not to mention, if you're thinking of making LEO launches do this, then they'd either have to capture other LEO junk (makes little sense, most of it will deorbit itself), or you'd have to bolt on additional stage, which may very well introduce more junk itself (are people still using explosive bolts for upper stage separation?).

myself248 6y ago
So make 'em separate missions, of course. You have to run the retrieval mission and have it succeed before you're granted a launch license for the original mission of putting something up.
- simonh 6y ago
  Mission-for-mission makes no sense, who decides what mass or orbit of junk counts for your mission? You really have to wait years and set up a whole different mission architecture before you can launch your own project? It's bananas. However a cleanup tax on satellite launches used to fund recovery efforts might work.

sp332 6y ago

The whole article is about how no one knows a good way to do that yet.