kanban From United States of America, joined Jan 2008, 2469 posts, RR: 21 Reply 1, posted (3 years 2 months 16 hours ago) and read 3678 times:
makes too much sense and is too inexpensive to succeed. by that I mean not enough venders to scatter across the political spectrum for the voters.. now it this cost over $1 Billion with components from 30 states congress would be for it immediately
kalvado From United States of America, joined Feb 2006, 471 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (3 years 2 months 6 hours ago) and read 3437 times:
Doesn't look feasible to me.
Is it for new launches, or for already in-orbit components?
If it's a new-object feature... just one more system which may fail.
Booster stages are commonly left on elliptical orbits, so that they interact with atmosphere and re-enter some time after launch. For a satellite, it's just another system, which either need to be deployed as commanded at the end of lifecycle (if satellite is still under control at that stage!), or it would deploy at launch - and create extra drag and consume precious fuel on orbit.
Docking to uncontrollably flying objects.. that's an interesting one; however I doubt those plastic sails with controlled docking would be more cost effective than a small jet engine in a same package. After all, DARTs failed miserably, and conditions for junk pick-up going to be more harsh - so hypergolic engine is IMHO pretty much a must for docking. Would it be cheaper to put another 10 pounds of fuel? That's pennies on space scale, $50k or so. We don't need much thrust, we need total deltaV
Next, sail would work on relatively low orbits only as far as I understand. No GPS or earth-synchro orbit cleanup that way..
Pricetag - $10M per piece of junk, price of cheapest orbit delivery system by now. You cannot count on getting a piggy-back ride to required orbit every time..
Overall, I don't see that work. Not without very detailed mass-efficiency analysis at the very least.
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12718 posts, RR: 80 Reply 3, posted (3 years 2 months ago) and read 3308 times:
SSTL have a great record of pioneering small satellites since 1985, originally a small operation out of Surrey University in SE England, they gained a reputation for simplicity, innovation and gained a wide customer base including many governments.
Now part of EADS Astrium they are not an amateur operation and have a US branch.
Spacepope From Vatican City, joined Dec 1999, 2739 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (3 years 1 month 4 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 3224 times:
I'm going to have to side with kalvado on this one. It's kind of like a hybrid car: An interesting and functional piece of technology to be sure, however it is akin to a band-aid over a bullet wound when dealing with the problem as a whole.
Oroka From Canada, joined Dec 2006, 789 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (3 years 1 month 4 weeks 1 day 17 hours ago) and read 3174 times:
It will be good for de-orbiting new space junk, but existing junk, it would be expensive to intercept, attach to the junk, then de-orbit. I think a low power laser in space would be best, it could focus a beam on some junk, and push it lower so the atmosphere can grab it easier. Use solar panels, or maybe a nuclear reactor to power the laser. Too bad the ISS isnt in a higher orbit... you could add a module to it, use some of the ISS' power for the laser, and just pick stuff off when it comes into range.
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