Space debris cleaning mission

Today space debris became rather an important issue to be solved in the space exploration area. That is why a lot of space companies wanna make some ``cleaning`` missions to clean the Earth`s orbit from this space junk. So could you please name some ``cleaning`` missions which are about to be launched in the nearest time?

a reply to: james00

Try using a Search Engine.

Was reading somewhere a while back that there is so much stuff in low earth orbit, if there are any aliens they probably think Earth is a trash dump....

www.weforum.org...

From the article....

3,000 inactive satellites are still in space.
Space debris can travel at 40,000 kilometers an hour.
A new space mission aims to remove defunct satellites from orbit.
On March 22, 2021, a craft resembling a washing machine with wings was catapulted into the sky from Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket, in what its inventors describe as, “the start of the world’s first commercial mission to prove the core technologies necessary for space debris docking and removal.”

The launch of the ELSA-d mission — the demonstration of a pioneering method to capture and safely remove space debris from orbit using magnetic retrieval — is part of efforts by a number of companies to conduct a celestial litter-picking exercise on a grand scale.

Created by Japanese start-up Astroscale, ELSA-d consists of two satellites stacked together. The first part is a service craft designed to safely remove debris from orbit. This is docked with a smaller satellite that replicates a piece of space debris during test flights.

a reply to: james00

The End-of-Life Services by Astroscale

RemoveDebris

Pretty sure USA have some lasers that can shoot stuff out of the sky...
Perhaps it will be a bad idea and create more mess.

But at lower settings perhaps it could push the stuff away from earth.

What's needed is something that can stay in orbit for a long time, be maneuverable enough to modify its orbit to match whatever junk it's trying to snag, and then have some kind of "catcher's mitt" device that can actually capture the junk if it happens to be going at a fairly high speed and either yeet it into space or throw it down into the atmosphere to burn up. So it's likely to consist of multiple parts. A central core and then smaller devices that can attach themselves to the junk and do something with it.

It's quite a tall order, technically. Of course the tracking would also be a nightmare because some of the stuff zipping around out there is tiny, but some is also classified, and some is also owned by other countries than the US. So it would all have to be catalogued and proper salvage / destruction rights determined. The legal stuff may be more complicated than the device itself.

And who is going to pay for it? Is there any money in it?

Musk made an interesting solution how not to increase the number of space junk with dead satellites. Starlink satellites will have a special self disposal feature in order not to increase the number of spce debris. To clarify it, these satellites will be able to lead themself to the atmosphere of Earth where they can just burn down.

Last of all I wanna mention one interesting technology named as space tug . One of the purposes of this space tug is deorbiting space debris or transferring space debris to disposal orbit. Long story short, it sends space junk to the atmoshere of Earth, where it can burn down.

a reply to: james00

Altering orbit to chase stuff takes fuel ("delta V"). Not really a practical approach.

You are traveling at about 17,000 mph in that direction. It takes a lot of power to change that. Newton, and stuff.

Also, the purposes of the space tug are: refuelling satellites or spacecrafts, deploying payloads into different orbits and altitudes,correcting satellite or spacecraft orbit, transferring payloads into lunar orbit and interplanetary missions.

a reply to: james00

Where do the tugs get the fuel to refuel other satellites? How do the tugs (and fuel) get into orbit?


Wait a minute. School just started. Is this an assignment?

a reply to: james00

The smallest piece of space junk that can be tracked presently, is about 2 inches in diameter in low Earth orbit.

Our major concern is much smaller stuff; particles from the size of a piece of rice to lets say a 1" diameter ball bearing.

Those, traveling at 1 to 2 miles a second, can take out almost any piece of equipment, depending upon what they are made of and if hit in a vulnerable location.

We can see the big stuff, and our radar and processing technology can reasonably protect maneuverable spacecraft with intersect and avoidance guidelines.

Not so with the little stuff, which are also millions of times more numerous.

The little stuff is the BIG problem, and there is absolutely no known remedy that can eliminate the danger that they pose to space travel.