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Contrary to most of the fear mongering about space debris, kessler syndrome etc, the big Western satellite operators are generally moving in the right direction

Contrary to most of the fear mongering about space debris, kessler syndrome etc, the big Western satellite operators are generally moving in the right direction and have moved faster than regulators to try to set space debris management standards. Incidents like this one are pretty uncommon, and as space debris goes, this is pretty benign in the sense that it's a large intact satellite and can thus be tracked fairly easily and precisely. Once the technology matures, a cleanup vehicle could even be sent to move it into graveyard orbit. The kind of space debris that tends to be problematic is stuff that is too small to track, since then you're stuck relying either on pure luck or giving the area a wide berth to not have it hit something else.

nordsieck 3y ago
> the big Western satellite operators are generally moving in the right direction and have moved faster than regulators to try to set space debris management standards. We'll see. Starlink/Kuiper use a low enough orbit that non-functional satellites will de-orbit on their own in a reasonable timeframe. But OneWeb, which is up at 1000km+ already has had a satellite failure. And although they've vowed to remove it somehow, it's not obvious how they'll do so.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  As far as I'm aware, OneWeb sats have the Astroscale grappling point on them so the vehicle Astroscale is developing can grab and deorbit the dead satellites. The most recent news on that being that an in-orbit demonstration is intended to launch in 2025. Edit: correction, oneweb doesn't specifically use the astroscale grappling fixture, instead it seems they use either their own design, or ones designed by Altius. Apparently these designs are such that they can be grappled either mechanically or magnetically, so presumably the difference is not significant enough to meaningfully limit which MEV can handle the job.

nordsieck 3y ago

> the big Western satellite operators are generally moving in the right direction and have moved faster than regulators to try to set space debris management standards. We'll see. Starlink/Kuiper use a low enough orbit that non-functional satellites will de-orbit on their own in a reasonable timeframe. But OneWeb, which is up at 1000km+ already has had a satellite failure. And although they've vowed to remove it somehow, it's not obvious how they'll do so.

dotnet00 3y ago
As far as I'm aware, OneWeb sats have the Astroscale grappling point on them so the vehicle Astroscale is developing can grab and deorbit the dead satellites. The most recent news on that being that an in-orbit demonstration is intended to launch in 2025. Edit: correction, oneweb doesn't specifically use the astroscale grappling fixture, instead it seems they use either their own design, or ones designed by Altius. Apparently these designs are such that they can be grappled either mechanically or magnetically, so presumably the difference is not significant enough to meaningfully limit which MEV can handle the job.