Orbital Cleanup

[EL PIC]

What are your thoughts on orbital cleanup ?
Besides prevention like not blowing up things ..
I would suggest cleanup drones under an international effort. Recently ESA has announced this kind of project for 2025. It is for big objects and looks like a spider. Not an easy thing to design. Russia recently test fired a rocket that blew up a satellite and added to the space junk problem.

https://www.space.com/amp/esa-startup-clearspace-debris-removal-2025

 

[billslugg]

Maneuvering a craft to intersect and grab debris would be very expensive in terms of fuel. A better way might be to simply ablade the leading face of debris with a laser. The expanding gases would slow the debris so it could reenter the atmosphere. The laser could even be located on the ground.

 

[Lariliss]

Pioneers go with maneuvering engine designs (for instance, Starlink reported more than 1000 maneuvers for the ‘first bunch’ launches).

Nevertheless, the space industry itself is doing its job, most of the time looking down to the Earth with support.

A U.K. company Skyrora (https://www.skyrora.com/) third-stage engine onboard a vehicle is capable of delivering satellites to destination orbits. The vehicle is able to perform a number of maneuvers in space, passing the space junk and satellites that are already in their orbits.

And at the same time any important mission announces trials for debris removal.

 

[Aplu]

I've been rabbiting on for ages about the need for the adaption of the hugely successful international Maritime Salvage legal regime to Earth Orbit, to keep the process above-board and prevent nasty suspicious minds doing what nasty suspicious minds do best (if you can use that word "best" in this context) and making molehills into mountains based on flimsy claims.

 

[Catastrophe]

One might, perhaps, draw a distinction between those causing the debris to the ends of science and those doing so for profit. The latter might be strictly considered if the perpetrators are making massive profits and not paying fair tax.

Cat