3 ms·

You can't reasonably measure this by the kg. Pulling down a single 10000 kg satellite is fairly cheap; all you need to do is latch onto it and deorbit. This can

by WJW 4y ago

You can't reasonably measure this by the kg. Pulling down a single 10000 kg satellite is fairly cheap; all you need to do is latch onto it and deorbit. This can be done with a single vehicle. Deorbiting 10k 1 kg fragments would be vastly more expensive. 1 million 10 gram fragments would be more expensive still.

krastanov 4y ago
There are techniques with which deorbiting 1 million 10 gram fragments might end up being quite cheap. E.g. the use of a single laser-equipped base that selectively hits the debris to cause localized evaporation and thrust, disrupting their trajectory.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  If a tiny bit of undirected evaporation is enough to push the fragment to deorbit, it's already so low that it would have deorbited on its own very soon anyway. In that case evaporating it completely would be a better option, as a gas it's harmless
  - krastanov 4y ago
    You overestimate the ease of evaporating something and umderestimate the effectiveness of a little bit of thrust.
kortex 4y ago
I've heard about space drives which leverage a tether and an electrical wire which allows you to trade electricity for momentum by reacting against Earth's magnetic field. I wonder if a space tug could use this effect and maneuver indefinitely. Grab a dead satellite, spin up to speed using magneto drive, let go and simultaneously yeet the junk retrograde and boost its own orbit.
deleted 4y ago
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schiffern 4y ago
>You can't reasonably measure this by the kg. Pulling down a single 10000 kg satellite is fairly cheap On the contrary, this seems reasonable. It (correctly) identifies that deorbiting intact satellites before they fragment is overwhelmingly the cost-optimal strategy. In the long-run, it's really total mass in a given orbit that's the dominant variable which separates runaway Kessler syndrome from stability. Therefore, a per-kilogram "bounty" (with a sliding scale depending on orbit) wouldn't be a bad incentive model. Don't pick winners, let the market decide™.

by WJW 4y ago

krastanov 4y ago

There are techniques with which deorbiting 1 million 10 gram fragments might end up being quite cheap. E.g. the use of a single laser-equipped base that selectively hits the debris to cause localized evaporation and thrust, disrupting their trajectory.

GekkePrutser 4y ago
If a tiny bit of undirected evaporation is enough to push the fragment to deorbit, it's already so low that it would have deorbited on its own very soon anyway. In that case evaporating it completely would be a better option, as a gas it's harmless
- krastanov 4y ago
  You overestimate the ease of evaporating something and umderestimate the effectiveness of a little bit of thrust.

kortex 4y ago

I've heard about space drives which leverage a tether and an electrical wire which allows you to trade electricity for momentum by reacting against Earth's magnetic field. I wonder if a space tug could use this effect and maneuver indefinitely. Grab a dead satellite, spin up to speed using magneto drive, let go and simultaneously yeet the junk retrograde and boost its own orbit.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

schiffern 4y ago

>You can't reasonably measure this by the kg. Pulling down a single 10000 kg satellite is fairly cheap On the contrary, this seems reasonable. It (correctly) identifies that deorbiting intact satellites before they fragment is overwhelmingly the cost-optimal strategy. In the long-run, it's really total mass in a given orbit that's the dominant variable which separates runaway Kessler syndrome from stability. Therefore, a per-kilogram "bounty" (with a sliding scale depending on orbit) wouldn't be a bad incentive model. Don't pick winners, let the market decide™.