5 ms·

when i first heard about this probe last week i was wondering, isn't this thing old and unique enough to warrant a mission to rescue and preserve it? combined w

by em-bee 2y ago

when i first heard about this probe last week i was wondering, isn't this thing old and unique enough to warrant a mission to rescue and preserve it? combined with todays lower prices for a space flight, it might just be worth it. and now it looks like it might just survive anyways. but then according to the article there also seems to be a second (identical?) model. so maybe it's not that important, except for maybe material analysis what does 50 years of exposure to space do to the material.

rdtsc 2y ago
In principle this is not science fiction, Space Shuttle captured a satellite, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49, they just didn't return it back. It was a catch, fix, and release.
- dreamcompiler 2y ago
  They did that when they fixed the Hubble telescope too. Five times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servi...
- euroderf 2y ago
  How many satellites have the USAF and US Space Command captured ? Inquring minds want to know.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    They do run their own unmanned shuttle based platform spacecraft but full capabilities aren’t public.
- walrus01 2y ago
  The space shuttle also captured and returned the long duration exposure facility satellite, a materials test bus for future missions. Extremely uneconomical, however.
- mk_stjames 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A brought two satellites back in the cargo bay that had not reached their proper orbit on a prior launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-32 brought back the Long Duration Exposure Facility experiment, a bigass science probe the size of a small school bus. There are still missions that are classified that could have done so as well. It was something the shuttle was designed to do, with the 60-foot cargo bay requirement and the ability to bring back the mass it flew with coming specifically from the military.
  - rdtsc 2y ago
    > STS-51-A marked the first time a shuttle deployed two communications satellites, and retrieved from orbit two other communications satellites That's very interesting. First time I heard about it. Thanks for the reference!
  - alnwlsn 2y ago
    I've heard that one of the things they wanted the shuttle to do was launch, capture a spacecraft in polar orbit, and land at the launch site within a single orbit. Some say it was so they could secretly grab a Soviet satellite right out of the sky when it was out of range of Russia, but I'm not sure how you would secure something like that in the payload bay.
    - toast0 2y ago
      > I'm not sure how you would secure something like that in the payload bay. Tighten down some ratchet straps, wiggle it a bit and say, 'that'll hold it'
    - ahazred8ta 2y ago
      That's an urban legend. There were never any plans to capture a satellite in a single orbit. It was supposed to be capable of making an emergency landing after one orbit, but not while releasing or capturing a satellite. The 1950s Air Force X-20 Dyna-Soar was intended to launch a recon satellite and land in one orbit, but not recover a foreign satellite in one orbit.
- DonHopkins 2y ago
  Is Catch Fix Release like Trap Neuter Return? Did they snip its ear tip for identification? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap%E2%80%93neuter%E2%80%93return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap%E2%80%93neuter%E2%80%93re...
  - rdtsc 2y ago
    > Is Catch Fix Release like Trap Neuter Return? And Soviets were wondering why their satellite numbers were not growing...
MetallicDragon 2y ago
I don't think we have any active craft capable of recovering it. The space shuttle probably could have done it, but with a cost of about $1.5b per launch, there is no way that would be worth it. SpaceX's Dragon 2 easily has enough cargo capacity to bring it down (~3 tons vs 0.5 ton), but there's still the question of intercepting, capturing, and securing it in Dragon's cargo bay. That would still cost something north of $100m to recover the lander.
- dmurray 2y ago
  Most of the benefit of the Shuttle program, and manned spaceflight in general, has come from R and D on the launch process, or from the prestige and bragging rights of being able to launch humans into space. So once they're up there, you're getting your money's worth (or not) no matter what they do, you may as well do something cool like recover a historic satellite.
  - pirate787 2y ago
    The Shuttle program was a disaster that consumed NASA's budget and set back manned space flight by a generation.
- olex 2y ago
  Dragon likely wouldn't be able to get it, unfortunately. The lander would easily fit into the unpressurized cargo bay (the "trunk"), that is typically used to launch various vacuum-bound payloads alongside pressurized cargo inside the capsule. However, for a return from orbit, the trunk cannot be used - it is not protected by a heat shield, and is ejected before re-entry. You are correct that the return payload mass of a Dragon would technically allow it. But you'd need to somehow get the captured object _inside_ the capsule, which may be possible via the EVA front hatch for something smaller, but not 1m in diameter like the Venera lander. Starship should be able to do it, since it is fully protected by heat shielding and returns in one piece, not ejecting any modules in orbit. But that's quite a while from being operational yet.
- nradov 2y ago
  No, the Space Shuttle could not have done it. It had nowhere near the ΔV that would have been necessary for an intercept and capture. The OMS had only a tiny fuel supply. We're talking about orders of magnitude difference here.
bunderbunder 2y ago
I would guess that the most expensive part of such an endeavor wouldn't be the launch; it would be developing and building a spacecraft capable of capturing it and bringing it back. Even the Space Shuttle wasn't necessarily a perfect fit for the job as-is. Hubble was serviced many times, but it was specifically designed for on-orbit capture and servicing by the Shuttle. Before they decommissioned the shuttle they actually had to install an extra piece of hardware to make it feasible to capture and de-orbit using future non-crewed spacecraft. And even then that's just to make sure it crashes in a safe place, not to bring it home intact. There was also a mission to service a satellite that wasn't designed for the purpose, and they had a really hard time capturing it and very nearly had to give up after days' worth of failed attempts. It finally took simultaneous EVA by three astronauts to coordinate a successful capture (one to grab it by hand, two to get it onto a specialized adapter rig built just for that satellite so that the Canadarm could hold it), which is quite a thing considering that the Shuttle's only designed to allow two people on EVA at a time. This craft is likely tumbling, which I presume would make it unacceptably dangerous for a crewed mission (and certainly rules out anyone just going out there and grabbing it with their hands), in addition to making successful capture that much more difficult.
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  Wouldn't it be possible to "simply" match it's tumble?
  - stevage 2y ago
    That sounds absolutely terrifying for the astronaut. Imagine the whole universe spinning past you every second. Not to mention the forces.
  - throw_a_grenade 2y ago
    No, when it tumbles, it does it around its centre of mass. You'd have to get a craft that has empty area inside. If you know Elite, it has space stations where you dock by going inside, while matching station's rotation. That's only in one axis (and note the hangar goes through the axis of rotation, i.e. centre of mass). To add rotation around another axis would make the task impossible.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Perhaps scientists would have some particular interest in that particular hardware as it had been launched and flown in Earth orbit, but I'll tell ya: it's way easier to get your hands on flight spare equipment; while this stuff hasn't flown, it's probably a really good copy of whatever they did launch into space, and way better condition. When I worked "on Mars" there was a "flight spare" copy of a Viking instrument which was the predecessor to the one we were working on, and of course it was encased in Plexiglas as a museum piece, but it was truly a redundant copy, as NASA was into copying everything they sent into space, (what was the saying in Contact? "Why have only one, when you can buy two at twice the price?") so that if anything needed to be tweaked, or went wrong, they would have this copy on the ground that they could experiment with to their hearts' content.
Sharlin 2y ago
You're quite overestimating our capabilities as a species if you think that planning, developing, and launching a recovery mission in a few weeks would be even remotely feasible. Sure, we've known that the thing's up there all this time, so in the very counterfactual scenario where we had started thinking about a retrieval mission a few of years ago, and the Space Shuttle was still a thing, and someone was willing to foot the n-hundred-million-dollar bill, I guess? I don't think any nation on Earth currently has the hardware required to rendezvous with a random spacecraft in orbit and bring it down in one piece. The Shuttle was unique in that respect.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Feasible for a 50yo project motivated by nostalgia? No National existential crisis? They'd probably take Dragon and figure out how to make it work.
Rover222 2y ago
This thing would be going at higher than earth orbital velocity, making an in-space capture of it more or less impossible.
klysm 2y ago
Who’s gonna pay for that?

by em-bee 2y ago

rdtsc 2y ago

In principle this is not science fiction, Space Shuttle captured a satellite, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-49, they just didn't return it back. It was a catch, fix, and release.

dreamcompiler 2y ago
They did that when they fixed the Hubble telescope too. Five times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servi...
euroderf 2y ago
How many satellites have the USAF and US Space Command captured ? Inquring minds want to know.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  They do run their own unmanned shuttle based platform spacecraft but full capabilities aren’t public.
walrus01 2y ago
The space shuttle also captured and returned the long duration exposure facility satellite, a materials test bus for future missions. Extremely uneconomical, however.
mk_stjames 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A brought two satellites back in the cargo bay that had not reached their proper orbit on a prior launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-32 brought back the Long Duration Exposure Facility experiment, a bigass science probe the size of a small school bus. There are still missions that are classified that could have done so as well. It was something the shuttle was designed to do, with the 60-foot cargo bay requirement and the ability to bring back the mass it flew with coming specifically from the military.
- rdtsc 2y ago
  > STS-51-A marked the first time a shuttle deployed two communications satellites, and retrieved from orbit two other communications satellites That's very interesting. First time I heard about it. Thanks for the reference!
- alnwlsn 2y ago
  I've heard that one of the things they wanted the shuttle to do was launch, capture a spacecraft in polar orbit, and land at the launch site within a single orbit. Some say it was so they could secretly grab a Soviet satellite right out of the sky when it was out of range of Russia, but I'm not sure how you would secure something like that in the payload bay.
  - toast0 2y ago
    > I'm not sure how you would secure something like that in the payload bay. Tighten down some ratchet straps, wiggle it a bit and say, 'that'll hold it'
  - ahazred8ta 2y ago
    That's an urban legend. There were never any plans to capture a satellite in a single orbit. It was supposed to be capable of making an emergency landing after one orbit, but not while releasing or capturing a satellite. The 1950s Air Force X-20 Dyna-Soar was intended to launch a recon satellite and land in one orbit, but not recover a foreign satellite in one orbit.
DonHopkins 2y ago
Is Catch Fix Release like Trap Neuter Return? Did they snip its ear tip for identification? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap%E2%80%93neuter%E2%80%93return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap%E2%80%93neuter%E2%80%93re...
- rdtsc 2y ago
  > Is Catch Fix Release like Trap Neuter Return? And Soviets were wondering why their satellite numbers were not growing...

MetallicDragon 2y ago

I don't think we have any active craft capable of recovering it. The space shuttle probably could have done it, but with a cost of about $1.5b per launch, there is no way that would be worth it. SpaceX's Dragon 2 easily has enough cargo capacity to bring it down (~3 tons vs 0.5 ton), but there's still the question of intercepting, capturing, and securing it in Dragon's cargo bay. That would still cost something north of $100m to recover the lander.

dmurray 2y ago
Most of the benefit of the Shuttle program, and manned spaceflight in general, has come from R and D on the launch process, or from the prestige and bragging rights of being able to launch humans into space. So once they're up there, you're getting your money's worth (or not) no matter what they do, you may as well do something cool like recover a historic satellite.
- pirate787 2y ago
  The Shuttle program was a disaster that consumed NASA's budget and set back manned space flight by a generation.
olex 2y ago
Dragon likely wouldn't be able to get it, unfortunately. The lander would easily fit into the unpressurized cargo bay (the "trunk"), that is typically used to launch various vacuum-bound payloads alongside pressurized cargo inside the capsule. However, for a return from orbit, the trunk cannot be used - it is not protected by a heat shield, and is ejected before re-entry. You are correct that the return payload mass of a Dragon would technically allow it. But you'd need to somehow get the captured object _inside_ the capsule, which may be possible via the EVA front hatch for something smaller, but not 1m in diameter like the Venera lander. Starship should be able to do it, since it is fully protected by heat shielding and returns in one piece, not ejecting any modules in orbit. But that's quite a while from being operational yet.
nradov 2y ago
No, the Space Shuttle could not have done it. It had nowhere near the ΔV that would have been necessary for an intercept and capture. The OMS had only a tiny fuel supply. We're talking about orders of magnitude difference here.

bunderbunder 2y ago

I would guess that the most expensive part of such an endeavor wouldn't be the launch; it would be developing and building a spacecraft capable of capturing it and bringing it back. Even the Space Shuttle wasn't necessarily a perfect fit for the job as-is. Hubble was serviced many times, but it was specifically designed for on-orbit capture and servicing by the Shuttle. Before they decommissioned the shuttle they actually had to install an extra piece of hardware to make it feasible to capture and de-orbit using future non-crewed spacecraft. And even then that's just to make sure it crashes in a safe place, not to bring it home intact. There was also a mission to service a satellite that wasn't designed for the purpose, and they had a really hard time capturing it and very nearly had to give up after days' worth of failed attempts. It finally took simultaneous EVA by three astronauts to coordinate a successful capture (one to grab it by hand, two to get it onto a specialized adapter rig built just for that satellite so that the Canadarm could hold it), which is quite a thing considering that the Shuttle's only designed to allow two people on EVA at a time. This craft is likely tumbling, which I presume would make it unacceptably dangerous for a crewed mission (and certainly rules out anyone just going out there and grabbing it with their hands), in addition to making successful capture that much more difficult.

RobotToaster 2y ago
Wouldn't it be possible to "simply" match it's tumble?
- stevage 2y ago
  That sounds absolutely terrifying for the astronaut. Imagine the whole universe spinning past you every second. Not to mention the forces.
- throw_a_grenade 2y ago
  No, when it tumbles, it does it around its centre of mass. You'd have to get a craft that has empty area inside. If you know Elite, it has space stations where you dock by going inside, while matching station's rotation. That's only in one axis (and note the hangar goes through the axis of rotation, i.e. centre of mass). To add rotation around another axis would make the task impossible.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

Perhaps scientists would have some particular interest in that particular hardware as it had been launched and flown in Earth orbit, but I'll tell ya: it's way easier to get your hands on flight spare equipment; while this stuff hasn't flown, it's probably a really good copy of whatever they did launch into space, and way better condition. When I worked "on Mars" there was a "flight spare" copy of a Viking instrument which was the predecessor to the one we were working on, and of course it was encased in Plexiglas as a museum piece, but it was truly a redundant copy, as NASA was into copying everything they sent into space, (what was the saying in Contact? "Why have only one, when you can buy two at twice the price?") so that if anything needed to be tweaked, or went wrong, they would have this copy on the ground that they could experiment with to their hearts' content.

Sharlin 2y ago

You're quite overestimating our capabilities as a species if you think that planning, developing, and launching a recovery mission in a few weeks would be even remotely feasible. Sure, we've known that the thing's up there all this time, so in the very counterfactual scenario where we had started thinking about a retrieval mission a few of years ago, and the Space Shuttle was still a thing, and someone was willing to foot the n-hundred-million-dollar bill, I guess? I don't think any nation on Earth currently has the hardware required to rendezvous with a random spacecraft in orbit and bring it down in one piece. The Shuttle was unique in that respect.

potato3732842 2y ago
Feasible for a 50yo project motivated by nostalgia? No National existential crisis? They'd probably take Dragon and figure out how to make it work.

Rover222 2y ago

This thing would be going at higher than earth orbital velocity, making an in-space capture of it more or less impossible.

klysm 2y ago

Who’s gonna pay for that?