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2 ways to reduce orbital debris: get rid of stuff that's already there, and generate less. This law seems to me like it would tackle both. More stringent deorb
by Rebelgecko 4y ago
2 ways to reduce orbital debris: get rid of stuff that's already there, and generate less. This law seems to me like it would tackle both.
More stringent deorbiting standards and better methods for satellites to commit sudoku will reduce the amount of satellites that become debris.
But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of debris in orbit today comes from 2 sources: the Chinese ASAT test and leaky Soviet nuclear reactors. The proposed ASAT test ban helps that from being an issue, but you still need a way to clean up the existing debris (other than waiting decades or centuries)
- Ferrotin 4y agoHow on earth would a leaky Soviet reactor create orbital debris?
- thatcherc 4y agoCommenter is probably referring to this incident[1] where a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor on a Soviet satellite ended up spraying a bunch of small beads of sodium into Earth orbit. The number and density of the beads makes them a long-lived hazard. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954
- Rebelgecko 4y agoThere's a few dozen nuclear powered RORSATS. When their start leaking (due to micrometeorite strikes or just wear & tear), they leak out globs of coolant that coagulate together. Each satellite has a few hundred points of coolant, which can make a LOT of 1cm across globs (or larger globs, or droplets that are too small to detect). I don't have a paper handy, but IIRC these droplets were the #1 source of space junk up until the 2007 antisatellite weapon test e: Paper here, https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.27.8466&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.27...
- Ferrotin 4y agoThanks, I’ll read it.
- Cyphase 4y agoI think you mean seppuku, not sudoku. :)
- awad 4y agoI said the said thing at first but learned it's an online meme :)
- Maursault 4y agoThere is a 3rd method already being implemented,[1] though it is enhanced by your second method. If no more satellites were put in orbit, eventually there would be no satellites (or space junk) in orbit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay
- Rebelgecko 4y agoUnfortunately I don't think it's practical to wait thousands-millions of years for everything to decay
- Maursault 4y agoHow about 150 years? Because due to orbital decay, that is about how long it would take for everything to fall out of orbit. If there is a Kessler Syndrome, depending on its effect at higher orbits, it might take a few hundred more years, but definitely definitely not billions of years.