Orbital Debris

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Gomanson
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Orbital Debris

Post by Gomanson »

The example given by the media during the last shuttle mission was that a puff of smoke in the path of the orbiting shuttle could destroy it. That could be an exageration but the point is well taken. Are we one low orbit explosion away from making a huge range of our orbital space uninhabitable? Are there any plans in the works for methods of "sweeping up" large areas of debris as we send more and more objects into orbit?
-Ross
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Dick Jacobson
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Post by Dick Jacobson »

Orbital debris is a huge problem. There was a recent estimate that the chance of the shuttle being destroyed by debris is about the same as from other causes, I think the figure was about 1 in 200. There was a loud "bang" on the International Space Station several months ago, they don't know whether it was from an internal or external cause. A few years ago a French weather or reconnaissance satellite was disabled by debris.

Rockets are now required to vent leftover fuel to prevent tank explosions, but I haven't heard of any realistic plans to sweep up existing debris. The volume of space involved is enormous. The worst case scenario is a "chain reaction" of objects colliding with each other resulting in exponential growth of the number of objects.
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benhuset
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LEO Space is self cleaning

Post by benhuset »

LEO Space is self cleaning.

I wish my house was too.

Things in orbit at the Space Station Space Shuttle level ~200 mi will be burned up in the Earth's atmosphere in less than a year,
unless something reboosts the orbit.

You need to go up to at least Sun Sync heights before you
need to worry about stuff staying around for more than a yr or two.

NORAD tracks all stuff bigger than a pop can. They advise NASA to move their stuff if they get within a few miles of anything harmful.

The station and shuttle can take a hit smaller than that. (with some exceptions).

Of course its just a matter of time till everything in the galaxy goes down the big black hole in the center.

--Ben
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Dick Jacobson
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Post by Dick Jacobson »

I just read an article, in the January 20 issue of Science, that asserts that the amount of debris has already reached the point that the number of objects will start growing even if we don't launch anything else. Currently there are about 9000 objects 10 cm in size or larger that are tracked. If I remember right, the article said this would increase to 12,000 by the end of the century. The biggest problem is at about 500 kilometers altitude where there is very little air resistance so the orbits take a long time to decay. There is currently no practical method for removing debris.
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Dick Jacobson
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Post by Dick Jacobson »

The March 30 issue of Aviation Week has a couple of interesting articles regarding space debris. One article reports that we may have already reached the point of no return where the amount of debris will continue to multiply even if there are no more launches. This was reported from a conference of NASA scientists on Mar. 23-24. The other article reports that ground-based lasers appear to be the leading candidate for dealing with space debris. The Space Protection Program, a joint US Air Force/National Reconnaissance Office program, has been studying methods of dealing with space debris, most of which have been rejected as impractical. A pulsed laser would ablate material from the debris and this material would re-enter the atmosphere more quickly than the original object.
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