Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

Dave_Duca · 2017-07-09 04:51:28

Yet another cog of the dynamic space mechanism is the certainty of a complete mission.
Until a high speed object of sufficient mass, decimates the spacecraft's hull integrity
and surgically removes the soul from any of its Crew Members.

The mere mention of Don Kessler (nasa) should be unnerving to the Space Faring Enthusiast.
Kessler Syndrome is the "collision cascading" of any two orbiting objects, dispersing a lethal layer around
our planet and impeding the interplanetary passage of humans traversing safely to and from Mars.
The same is equally obvious for the Red Planet.

Currently, 14 objects are orbiting Mars...
Mars-2, launched 1971 May 19, USSR, inactive
Mars-3, launched 1971 May 28, USSR, inactive
Mariner 9, launched 1971 May 30, USA, inactive
Mars-5, launched 1973 July 25, USSR, inactive
Viking 1, launched 1975 August 20, USA, inactive
Viking 2, launched 1975 September 9, USA, inactive
Phobos-2, launched 1988 July 12, USSR, inactive
Mars Global Surveyor, launched 1996 November 7, USA, inactive
2001 Mars Odyssey, launched 2001 April 7, USA, active
Mars Express, launched 2003 June 2, ESA, active
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched 2005 August 12, USA, active
Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan, launched 2013 November 5, India, active
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), USA, active
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched 2016 March 14, ESA and Russia, active

All space agencies are tracking everything that is known in Mars' proximity.
Between now and then, the theories of de-orbiting look good on paper.
Until an anomaly says otherwise.

Mars is not protected by the Inverse Square Law when impeding space weather bears down from
the occasional plasma bursts. The physical effects of a Solar Anemometer is proof of that.
Perturbations of orbit will occur, and there's little control from our end.

So the question is presented... how much more cost-effectively-smarter of probes will we send, in order to
do more with less hardware at location?

Last edited by Dave_Duca (2017-07-09 04:53:27)

RobS · 2017-07-09 08:51:12

Space around Mars is BIG so the chance of collision with debris is still close to zero. Consider the International Space Station doesn't have to dodge objects very often and terrestrial orbit is swarming with hundreds of thousands of tiny bits of spacecraft.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-09 11:27:16

Disclaimer: This material is being kept online for historical purposes. Page Last Updated: February 16, 2013
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/space … ation.html

Space Junk Clean Up: 7 Wild Ways to Destroy Orbital Debris

aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzAyOC81ODMvb3JpZ2luYWwvZWFydGgtZGVicmlzLWxhcmdlLmpwZw==
With half a million pieces of space debris cluttering Earth's orbit,

A Japanese Space Junk Removal Experiment Has Failed in Orbit as it was to unfurl a net to collect the pieces.

Space junk is a growing problem in low-Earth orbit. Since the beginning of the space age, debris as small as flecks of paint and as large as whole satellites and parts of rocket boosters have been accumulating and it is estimated that over 100 million individual pieces of junk (tens of thousands of pieces that are over 10 centimeters in size) are whizzing around our planet.

Meet the Space Custodians: Debris Cleanup Plans Emerge

The U.S. Space Surveillance Network currently tracks some 18,000 objects larger than 4 inches (10 centimeters), of which only 1,200 are intact, operational satellites. In addition to that, there are 750,000 so-called "flying bullets" about 0.4 inches (1 cm) in size and around 150 million fragments smaller than 1 millimeter

Dave_Duca · 2017-07-09 17:55:35

Meanwhile....
Let's REMEMBER our history and not replicate this conflagration for Mars.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-09 18:32:06

According to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a … ts_on_Mars not much is in orbit but rather is littering the surface of mars..images of stuff that is on the ground http://www.thelivingmoon.com/46_mike_si … is_01.html ..
http://www.astrobio.net/mars/evocative- … portunity/
.of which some of these did have orbiters that are for the most part on a decaying path....

NASA Orbital Debris Program Office

Antius · 2017-07-10 04:32:16

I wonder if phobos is a source of dangerous debris? A single impact on the surface of the moon would generate many times its own weight in debris, most of which would exceed the moon's escape velocity. Admittedly, the moon's gravity would also hoover up any debris generated by impacts.

There would appear to be no easy solution to debris cluttering Earth's orbit. The larger pieces can be intercepted and their orbits altered to intersect Earth's upper atmosphere. It is the smaller bits that are problematic. Maybe laser beams can be used to alter the orbits of small debris?

SpaceNut · 2017-07-10 18:16:00

It is said that if the moons of mars do break up that a ring of debri would be created.

Mars May Become a Ringed Planet Someday

Mars to lose its largest moon, but gain a ring

Mars could gain a ring in 10-20 million years when its moon Phobos is torn to shreds by Mars gravity.

New theory suggests Mars had rings in the past And Phobos could become more rings in the future.

SpaceNut · 2019-12-10 20:25:16

ESA commissions world's first space debris removal

ClearSpace-1 will be the first space mission to remove an item of debris from orbit, planned for launch in 2025.
"The space debris issue is more pressing than ever before. Today we have nearly 2000 live satellites in space and more than 3000 failed ones.
The ClearSpace-1 mission will target the Vespa (Vega Secondary Payload Adapter) upper stage left in an approximately 800 km by 660 km altitude orbit after the second flight of ESA's Vega launcher back in 2013. With a mass of 100 kg, the Vespa is close in size to a small satellite, while its relatively simple shape and sturdy construction make it a suitable first goal, before progressing to larger, more challenging captures by follow-up missions - eventually including multi-object capture.
The ClearSpace-1 'chaser' will be launched into a lower 500-km orbit for commissioning and critical tests before being raised to the target orbit for rendezvous and capture using a quartet of robotic arms under ESA supervision. The combined chaser plus Vespa will then be deorbited to burn up in the atmosphere.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-07-07 07:04:10

That discussed Kessler Syndrome theory or ablation cascade

If There Were a War in Space, Debris Would Destroy all Remaining Satellites in About 40 Years

https://www.universetoday.com/162280/if … -40-years/

On one particular day in 2021, astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the ISS must have felt a pin-prick of fear and uncertainty. On November 15th of that year, Russia fired an anti-satellite missile at one of its own defunct military satellites, Tselina-D. The target weighed about 1,750 kg, and when the missile struck its target, the satellite exploded into a cloud of hazardous debris.
NASA woke the crew on the International Space Station in the middle of the night and told them to take precautions and prepare for a possible impact. The Chinese space station Tiangong was also in danger, and multiple countries and space agencies condemned Russia’s foolhardy behaviour.
But there was no way to contain the debris.

Void · 2023-07-07 11:09:59

I would recommend considering using a directed spray from a Neumann Drive to possibly clean space orbits.

I believe that the most at risk orbits will be low ones, but not so low that the drag in the atmosphere. Just a little nudge might make fine junk start dragging in the uppermost atmosphere.

The spray materials might come from the Moon.

Done.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-08-03 05:50:47

junk or bits lying around out there from ASAT tests?

Senate committee advances orbital debris removal bill

https://spacenews.com/senate-committee- … oval-bill/

As the Senate advances a bill that would direct NASA to support missions to remove orbital debris, the agency is outlining the role it will take assisting the Commerce Department on a new space traffic coordination system.
The Senate Commerce Committee advanced the Orbital Sustainability, or ORBITS, Act on a voice vote during an executive session July 27. A version of the bill made it through the Senate last year but was not taken up by the House.
“The ORBITS Act is going to empower NASA to research, develop and demonstrate key technologies to remove the debris,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), lead sponsor of the bill, said in remarks at the session. “This bipartisan bill ensures that the United States remains the leader in responsible and sustainable uses of outer space.”
The core of the bill would direct NASA to establish an active debris removal program. That would include funding research and development activities “with the intent to close commercial capability gaps and enable potential future remediation missions for such orbital debris,” the bill states. NASA would also fund a demonstration mission for debris removal and allow it and other agencies to procure debris removal services.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-08-03 07:18:30

and after all these years slashdot is still one of the better science news feeds

India Says Space Junk Found In Australia Is Theirs
https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/0 … -is-theirs

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-08-09 08:48:44

Aeolus an Earth observation satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was built by Airbus Defence and Space, launched on 22nd day August 2018 and re-entered the atmosphere over Antarctica in a controlled manner and burned up on 28th day of July 2023.

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observ … ng_mission

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-09-19 09:55:35

On Sept 13, a derelict Soviet-era payload had a conjunction with a Chinese rocket body.
The miss distance was 36 m (± 13 m) and the probability of collision was 1E-3 (i.e., 0.1% or 1/1,000).

https://twitter.com/LeoLabs_Space/statu … 8675436888

GW Johnson · 2023-09-20 09:18:46

First thing to do when you're in a hole is to stop digging. From this point forward, we need an international agreement that we all put nothing into orbit that we cannot command into entry.

Second, we need to start filling in the hole we're in. Once full, we step out of the hole. That's the hard one with space junk. Many ideas, few tested, little in the way of promising results. But it cannot work at all, until we quit adding to the problem.

I had a really odd idea for sweeping-up space junk that many will hate. But it's no more a long shot shot than any of the other ideas.

My idea was to surround a small nuclear explosive with a large inert mass to vaporize, and shoot this up into the path of threatening objects, a swarm of them preferably. This can be a high suborbital shot, it must not reach orbit. Explode the device and create a non-moving cloud of expanding vapor right in the path of the offending objects. The drag pulse of it will act sort of like a small de-orbit burn, so the objects will re-enter sooner. It's still wildly uncontrolled, but at least they come down.

GW

kbd512 · 2023-09-20 10:14:00

GW,

How long will it take for the junk to come down, where will it come down, and have you considered that there are inoperative nuclear reactors up there as well?

Do we have to wait for 1 year or 5 years to access space again?

What would happen to ISS and the current operative satellites?

What about the constellations of internet, weather, communications, and spy satellites?

Are those getting nuked as well?

If all those issues are ironed out to everyone's satisfaction, do we have enough nukes to do this?

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-20 10:30:03

For kbd512 re #16

Great questions!

For GW ... This isn't offered as a question to start with ... it's just an observation ... I hope that kbd512 and hopefully other members will pitch in.

Taking the scenario you've laid out (as I understand it) a large number of small objects would be placed in the middle of the orbit of interest (it might be LEO) by an explosive device which has zero velocity with respect to the Earth at the moment of detonation. The small objects to be released would all have some velocity with respect to the Earth. The charge might be shaped, but if it is not shaped, then the particles will have some velocity and the distribution will be equal in all directions. The ones heading down will be accelerated by gravity and re-enter the atmosphere soonest. This would be an interesting problem to model with Flow 3D or any of the modern CFD programs.

If you shape your charge, you might be able to deploy the retardant ahead of a satellite you'd like to de-orbit, without interfering with the flight of other satellites.

Over in a new topic, Void has introduced the idea of lithobraking using sand as the material to be encountered by a moving vessel or payload.

Perhaps that idea will carry over to your proposal? If you deliver a payload of sand (or similar small particles) in the immediate path of an old satellite you want to de-orbit, then the satellite will have to accelerate the sand it meets to it's velocity, which will decrease it's velocity by some small amount. The sand itself, if not blown in all directions, would simply begin descending as fast as gravity can pull it down, and it would be gone in some modest amount of time, which one of our numbers savants might be able to compute without difficulty.

In other words, keep going with your idea (please!) .... It may have potential in some form. We may not know what that form is now.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-20 12:31:09

Apache Server Error did not like this content when it was added to the post immediately above ...

Update a bit later: This proposal reminds me of Star Wars (or at least the kinetic projectiles part of it).... In this case (if I understand your proposal) the kinetic projectiles would be small. If we pick up on kbd512's questions, and consider placing the small particles directly in the path of specific objects of interest, then Star Wars Brilliant Pebbles idea would come back to life in a (potentially) constructive form.

In another topic, recently, the capabilities of the new Spin Launch system were considered. One detail I remember from posts about that system is that the payload might arrive at apogee with zero velocity relative to the Earth. If the payload is a quantity of sand, and if the sand is well placed at the time of release, then it would (presumably) gently slow an object of interest without creating more debris. The carrier for the load of sand would (presumably) fall back to Earth without hitting anything on the way. This might prove to be practical way to de-orbit old satellites that are no longer useful.

(th)

GW Johnson · 2023-09-20 16:06:06

What I had in mind might be nothing more than ice. The nuke would vaporize it into a large expanding cloud of water vapor. Space junk in orbit runs into the water vapor cloud, and slows down due to drag just a bit. The non-orbiting vapor falls back, so we don't lose the water.

The space junk still comes back uncontrolled, just sooner than it would have otherwise. There is no way around that. I much prefer a vapor cloud to a swarm of particles, because vapor raises the probability that the space junk object will actually run into it, and be slowed.

The risk is EMP, whose intensity varies as the inverse of distance squared. So you have to be really careful how and where you do this.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-09-20 16:07:33)

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-20 18:25:46

For GW Johnson re #19.

This time I ** do ** have a question ... Why bother with the explosion?

If you release a blog of water in front of a satellite you want to slow down, it will expand naturally in space, at some rate that should be knowable. if the ice crystals collect on the satellite you want to slow, then their mass will reduce the kinetic energy of the satellite by some amount, which should also be knowable.

Is there a market for this service?

I understand there might be National ownership/responsibility issues.

(th)

GW Johnson · 2023-09-21 09:54:07

I wanted a vapor cloud to maximize the number of momentum-transferring collisions with particles of water. These are not spread very far apart in a vapor cloud. If droplets or ice particles, there is a lot of empty space between the clumps of molecules, holes through which space junk can fly.

It would not tale a large warhead to do what I propose; only the fractional-kiloton artillery-shell and self-destruct satchel charges would be sufficient. I just need a lot of water vapor volume suddenly out of a modest mass of ice, exploded about 1 sec before the junk gets there. This sort of thing would require only a small launcher, and could possibly be carried under the wing of a plane.

It would only be a little bigger than the ASAT launched from an F-15 in the 1990's, and only because of the ice mass.

Without the explosion, the cloud spreads a lot slower, and it will freeze to widely-spread ice crystals very quickly, almost immediately. The highly-energetic explosion heats the vapor up dramatically, so I have multiple seconds available before condensation creates the holes in the cloud that the objects could pass through.

GW

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-11-02 14:29:26

U.S. Senate passed bill to reduce and remove orbital debris

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s447/summary

SpaceNut · 2023-11-11 09:48:30

Lost in space: astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars

That tool bag, valued at $100,000, circled the planet for months until meeting its fiery end after plunging to Earth and disintegrating

AA1jJqrW.img?w=768&h=512&m=6

Thats something I would have thought would not happen with precautions being taken?

SpaceNut · 2023-11-19 15:09:18

It is still orbiting. Nasa astronauts’ lost tool bag to be visible from Britain this week

Weather permitting, Britons in London will have a good chance of seeing the bag between 8pm and 8.11pm on Tuesday evening. The best time to see it will be on Sunday November 26 between 5.27pm and 5.37pm.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-03-02 07:32:26

Space Trash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKpMmBDtZo

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2017-07-09 04:51:28

Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#2 2017-07-09 08:51:12

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#3 2017-07-09 11:27:16

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#4 2017-07-09 17:55:35

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#5 2017-07-09 18:32:06

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#6 2017-07-10 04:32:16

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#7 2017-07-10 18:16:00

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#8 2019-12-10 20:25:16

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#9 2023-07-07 07:04:10

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#10 2023-07-07 11:09:59

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#11 2023-08-03 05:50:47

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#12 2023-08-03 07:18:30

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#13 2023-08-09 08:48:44

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#14 2023-09-19 09:55:35

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#15 2023-09-20 09:18:46

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#16 2023-09-20 10:14:00

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#17 2023-09-20 10:30:03

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#18 2023-09-20 12:31:09

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#19 2023-09-20 16:06:06

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#20 2023-09-20 18:25:46

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#21 2023-09-21 09:54:07

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#22 2023-11-02 14:29:26

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#23 2023-11-11 09:48:30

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#24 2023-11-19 15:09:18

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

#25 2024-03-02 07:32:26

Re: Orbiting Debri and the Unspoken Reluctance

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