Clearspace-1 space debris cleanup target in orbit just got struck by space debris

[Admin]

Europe is readying to launch the ClearSpace-1 test mission for space debris. But the leftover item targeted for cleanup was apparently smacked by something in the interim.

Clearspace-1 space debris cleanup target in orbit just got struck by space debris : Read more

 

[Classical Motion]

That's hilarious. And shows there is a problem. Everybody forgets Murphy. The number of collisions has been small. And ignored. What statisticians don't realize is....that when the collisions start....they will multiply. And all of a sudden, space debris becomes a serious problem. They don't know Murphy. He waits for situations like this.

This capture strategy is too cumbersome, too time consuming, too resource consuming. Long term make work.

We need to be able to target orbital debris with lasers, and ionize the debris. One would think that charged objects would migrate towards the poles and eventually fall. We need to ionize many different sizes. And even electrically bump them down if needed. This will take power. Very large panels or nuclear power. But it would clear debris much faster. And could do cleaning maintenance.

 

[thatguy00]

That's hilarious. And shows there is a problem. Everybody forgets Murphy. The number of collisions has been small. And ignored. What statisticians don't realize is....that when the collisions start....they will multiply. And all of a sudden, space debris becomes a serious problem. They don't know Murphy. He waits for situations like this.

This capture strategy is too cumbersome, too time consuming, too resource consuming. Long term make work.

We need to be able to target orbital debris with lasers, and ionize the debris. One would think that charged objects would migrate towards the poles and eventually fall. We need to ionize many different sizes. And even electrically bump them down if needed. This will take power. Very large panels or nuclear power. But it would clear debris much faster. And could do cleaning maintenance.

that would be a smart thing to do but sadly smart and practical things are rarely done because its to simply

 

[NoFrillsBill]

I'm curious....did they send another craft up to follow this one around to take pictures of it?

 

[Paultergeist]

I'm curious....did they send another craft up to follow this one around to take pictures of it?

The launch is planned for 2026. That picture is an artist's impression.

 

[meohmy2023]

330 million objects circling the earth for the sake of exploring and bettering humanity. Sounds like the ocean pollution we're currently not doing anything about. But at least SPACE is cooler!!

 

[Classical Motion]

It's not just all the debris. All the machines up there have many EM emitters. All kinds of emitters. We can't hear anything here on earth now, too much noise. If we were beamed a message, we'd never hear it.

Can you hear me now? No. We need to put ears on the far side of the moon to hear anything. And the way it's going, we'll have to put telescopes on the far side to see anything.

 

[Brad]

I realize this is a technology demonstrator but unless you can scale this up, it's barely "debris neutral". Won't this leave behind it's own payload adapter? It's an even trade, or worse. To make a dent you would need huge fleets of these (more debris, light pollution, rocket launches) and each would have to be able to deorbit orders of magnitude more debris than what they leave behind to make any difference.