
Space junk mission deploys from the International Space Station - happy-go-lucky
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/space-junk-mission-deploys-from-the-international-space-station
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bane
If anybody is interested in some fiction around this topic, there's a pretty
good Japanese Manga/Anime series called Planetes that revolves around a group
of "space janitors" who have to clean up space junk.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes)

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inimino
Also Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, for an extreme space junk problem after the
moon mysteriously breaks apart.

Both of those and others are mentioned here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)

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sharcerer
That novel is a work of a legend. Especially, the future part. Ecen
Christopher nolan won't be able to do justice to this novel.(maybe he could)

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overcast
Has his writing style improved since Snow Crash and prior works? I don't think
I can handle slogging through another Stephenson novel.

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sharcerer
Well, i haven't read Snow Crash. I read about it on wiki and decided to skip
it. But i admit, while I was reading i got bored in between because pace had
slowed down and then I skipped a few dozen pages , read a few lines and
skipped way more and read more because wanted to know about the end as I was
becoming really impatient. Anyways after reaching the end, i felt guilty that
I skipped through a lot. A few days later I started reading again from the
point I began skipping and in the later parts , i got to know that I had
misunderstood some parts while skipping, so it turned out to be a blessing in
disguise. Also, some space stuff would have been better explained with a rough
diagram. I guess, I got bored in between because I was reading a novel after a
really long time. also, I got to know about Neal and this novel via Bill
Gates' summer reading list a few years ago.

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freeflight
Kind of sad ending for that cute, useful, little box to just burn up in the
atmosphere.

Makes me wonder if this is actually a viable approach on a larger scale, in
terms of resource costs? Or is the "burn it up at the end" just part of this
specific experiment and future versions won't have to be disposed of like
that?

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7952
Surely, de-orbiting is how you remove the space junk from orbit.

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freeflight
Agreed on the junk, but does the satellite itself really need to be burned
too?

With the amount of space-junk floating around it might be kinda wasteful to
burn the whole thing with the junk, that's why I was wondering about
reusability of the satellite itself.

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fraserharris
Why are they not experimenting with using photon momentum from a laser to push
debris into the atmosphere? It seems ideal for small high-velocity garbage.
Perhaps that's too close to weaponizing a spacecraft?

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ravar
This is one of the (many) things Philip Lubin has looked at. The momentum
transfer from photons is far too low. However this can be partially fixed. A
laser can vaporize part of the trash and then heat up some of the vaporized
material, effectively turning the ablated material into a small rocket. I am
not entirely sure how much more effective this is, and if it is enough to be a
viable technology.

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allannienhuis
alignment of forces would be a real pain. I expect the little rockets would
just spin the item around. Also, I would expect much of the existing space
junk to already be spinning in random directions for this approach to be
really difficult. (didn't read the article - perhaps it's explained there?)

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mLuby
You could disperse* the beam over the entire object to even out any added
rotational force. *whether by increasing beam diameter or sweeping beam across
the object's face.

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partycoder
That seems to be a great idea.

Unlike the "humanity star" initiative, a highly reflective object in space
designed to cause as much light pollution as possible. Something needs to be
done to prevent that from happening again. Our survival as a species depends
on reliable astronomy.

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sjburt
The Humanity Star was visible only for short periods of time at dusk and dawn
(which are not astronomical observing hours) and was, at brightest,
approximately magnitude 2. Less bright than many stars and planets, as well as
many existing satellites. In addition, it only stayed in orbit for about 6
weeks (although it was intended to last 9 months).

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mrfusion
Isn’t the simulated space debris actual space debris?

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manicdee
Yes, but it is already in a decaying orbit and will fall/burn up within a few
months. The ISS has to be reboosted routinely in order to keep it in orbit.

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marsokod
Yes, though depending on the part we are talking about it can take up to a
couple of years. The mission has been designed to avoid creating small
untrackable debris and everything is below the ISS.

Fun fact, as all the missions deployed from the ISS, the RemoveDebris
satellite is already classified as a debris in the NORAD satellite catalogue.

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accnumnplus1
What about simple deflection into the atmosphere - an inverted pyramid?

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mLuby
What was the point of harpooning something already attached to an arm? (see
video)

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marsokod
The goal of the experiment is to test the harpoon itself. You could have a
moving target but then it creates a constraint on tracking a non cooperative
target and orientating your harpoon accordingly, which is quite a feat in
itself. Also, by having it on the spacecraft, it allows observing the impact
point later on with the in board cameras.

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Theodores
Well, many years later than everyone else, plucky little Britain finally gets
into space - to collect the trash. Great!

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avmich
Not actually everyone else:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospero_(satellite)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospero_\(satellite\))

