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hey i did my senior undergraduate thesis on orbital debris removal and mitigation. specifically on mitigating the effects of the Kessler Syndrome. ..and it's a
by 32faction 12y ago
hey i did my senior undergraduate thesis on orbital debris removal and mitigation. specifically on mitigating the effects of the Kessler Syndrome.
..and it's a lot harder than just shooting another satellite up to bring the old one down. you have to match not only the speed of the target satellite, but the altitude and orbit it's in too.
once you've done that, you can't just attach to it, fire off thrusters and deorbit it; Newton's law still applies. You'll bump into it and according to the 3rd law the target will apply an equal and opposite force. you can't shoot it with a harpoon cause that'll cause more debris.
but let's say you do attach to it somehow or utilize something like electrodynamic tethers (which is what the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA) is using. you can't just throw it back to earth and hope the atmosphere does the rest; you have components that may not completely break up and may rain down upon populated areas(c1).
usually once a target satellite is acquired, it is moved to a graveyard orbit away from operational satellites.
i was going to submit an application to YC to startup a space company dedicated to space debris mitigation but it seemed a bit too complex.
(c1)-This is why most of our spaceflight launch locations (Cape Canaveral, Vandenburg, Wallops) are on the coasts; they fire away from CONUS so just in case there is a catastrophic failure, the debris doesnt rain down on your house.
- kartikkumar 12y agoIf you're interested in pursuing the idea of a (YC) startup on the topic still, feel free to drop me a line. See [1] for a bit of background on me. Active Debris Removal as a service (ADRAAS?) is going to be HOT. I know a few companies in the space already, and there are plenty of problems to address. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8573800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8573800
- 32faction 12y agoHey yea definitely! Is there a email/FB or other contact point I can communicate with you on? "ADRAAS" haha I love it. I prefer to call it ODRAAS though (orbital debris removal as a service) to distinguish the 'orbital-ness' of the debris haha.
- kartikkumar 12y agoODRAAS works too :) My email is in my profile.
- spoon16 12y agoIt's not. You have to explicitly put contact info in your about section if you want it to be visible to anyone except the YC admins.
- kartikkumar 12y agoAh, didn't realise that it's only admins that can see that. Thanks for the tip.
- 32faction 12y agoi don't see an email
- kartikkumar 12y agostrange, I filled it in. Anyway, you can reach me at me@ + my username + .com
- samstave 12y agoHigh-Yield Debris Removal As A Service: H.Y.D.R.A.A.S.
- kartikkumar 12y agoNice! :)
- Joeri 12y agoMaybe lawmakers could help by mandating that if you launch a kg you have to deorbit a kg. Given the right incentives I'm sure the private market can solve this problem.
- kartikkumar 12y agoYep exactly. It's already happening. I have a few colleagues that are knee-deep in space law and it's interesting to see how rapidly the landscape is changing in response to the growing threat to essential space-based assets (weather satellites, GNSS (GPS, Galileo), disaster-monitoring satellites etc.).
- userbinator 12y agoAt the moment it seems like letting the atmosphere burn up debris is the usual procedure, but I wonder how much longer that can be sustained without any significant effects on the atmosphere - it's a somewhat similar concern that stopped us from dumping waste into the ocean and limited the burning of things at ground level and letting the smoke dissipate into the atmosphere. Thus, even if we could somehow deorbit all the current debris and let them burn in the atmosphere, it might not solve all the problems.