24 ms·

The problem is you need a lot of fuel and delta-v for that. IMO lasers is a much better solution. High-power thermal laser ablates a key portion of the space-

The problem is you need a lot of fuel and delta-v for that. IMO lasers is a much better solution. High-power thermal laser ablates a key portion of the space-junk to slightly change its trajectory and preferably help deorbit it. All you need is energy since the reaction-mass comes from the space-junk itself. Maybe you could combine the ideas and instead of ablating to deorbit, you modify the space-junk orbits to collide with a large aerogel satellite. You could potentially even boost it in the process.

bell-cot 2y ago
> The problem is you need a lot of fuel and delta-v for that. Why? If the Bit O'Junk is within ~90% of its apogee, and it hits the aerogel cube at more than ~90 degrees, the impact will yield a fatal drop in Mr. O'Junk's perigee. Ion thrusters on the cube-laying satellites, high-precision orbital tracking, and a few racks of computers on the ground (to calculate orbits and impacts) should be enough. Low-powered lasers would probably be useful in the precision-tracking systems. Blasting space-junk with high-powered lasers is cool...but those immediately get into issues with dual-use, space weapons treaties, and arms race scenarios.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  (Corrections: "within ~90% of its apogee" should be "within ~45% of its apogee", and "hits the aerogel cube at more than ~90 degrees" should be "hits the aerogel cube at more than ~135 degrees". In both cases, the useful arc is ~90 degrees.)
- aeternum 2y ago
  I mean just delta-v to do the intercept in the first place. I suppose you could choose space junk that is already on a near intercept with the aerogel dispenser satellite or use something like spin deployment to launch the gels. Can aerogel be manufactured by the satellite itself? That would be pretty cool. It also seems nearly as effective as a weapon though, a spy satellite with a camera or solar panels caked with aerogel is as good as destroyed.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    I'm using "intercept" to mean "extremely near miss, at high relative velocities". With the quasi-chaotic nature of orbits, that's easy for our rack of orbit-calculating computers to arrange - using only a few well-timed little nudges from the Killer Satellite's ion thrusters. (Assume that the latter are in fairly elliptical orbits; some of those retrograde.) It's not critical that the killsats produce actual aerogel. A little cloud of snow, from a water tank and squirt nozzle, could also work. What matters is that it's cheap, reliable, low-mass, soft-ish, and collides head on-ish with Bit O'Junk - cutting the latter's orbital velocity by a few hundred meters per second. Done near apogee, that'd drop Mr. O'Junk's perigee enough for atmospheric drag to finish him off in very short order.

bell-cot 2y ago

> The problem is you need a lot of fuel and delta-v for that. Why? If the Bit O'Junk is within ~90% of its apogee, and it hits the aerogel cube at more than ~90 degrees, the impact will yield a fatal drop in Mr. O'Junk's perigee. Ion thrusters on the cube-laying satellites, high-precision orbital tracking, and a few racks of computers on the ground (to calculate orbits and impacts) should be enough. Low-powered lasers would probably be useful in the precision-tracking systems. Blasting space-junk with high-powered lasers is cool...but those immediately get into issues with dual-use, space weapons treaties, and arms race scenarios.

bell-cot 2y ago
(Corrections: "within ~90% of its apogee" should be "within ~45% of its apogee", and "hits the aerogel cube at more than ~90 degrees" should be "hits the aerogel cube at more than ~135 degrees". In both cases, the useful arc is ~90 degrees.)
aeternum 2y ago
I mean just delta-v to do the intercept in the first place. I suppose you could choose space junk that is already on a near intercept with the aerogel dispenser satellite or use something like spin deployment to launch the gels. Can aerogel be manufactured by the satellite itself? That would be pretty cool. It also seems nearly as effective as a weapon though, a spy satellite with a camera or solar panels caked with aerogel is as good as destroyed.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  I'm using "intercept" to mean "extremely near miss, at high relative velocities". With the quasi-chaotic nature of orbits, that's easy for our rack of orbit-calculating computers to arrange - using only a few well-timed little nudges from the Killer Satellite's ion thrusters. (Assume that the latter are in fairly elliptical orbits; some of those retrograde.) It's not critical that the killsats produce actual aerogel. A little cloud of snow, from a water tank and squirt nozzle, could also work. What matters is that it's cheap, reliable, low-mass, soft-ish, and collides head on-ish with Bit O'Junk - cutting the latter's orbital velocity by a few hundred meters per second. Done near apogee, that'd drop Mr. O'Junk's perigee enough for atmospheric drag to finish him off in very short order.