
Stuff in Space – realtime 3D map of objects in Earth's orbit - quakeguy
http://stuffin.space
======
jolmg
Reminds me of the anime Planetes, about a group of space garbage collectors.
In the opening scene, you're shown an innocuous looking screw floating in
orbit for something like 10 seconds, and then suddenly a traveling ship
appears from the distance, and the screw goes straight through like a bullet,
causing all the passengers to die. I don't know how realistic that was, but it
really set the tone for the importance of the characters' job in keeping the
orbits clean.

~~~
nprincigalli
Got curious, found it on youtube
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heESAW2addo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heESAW2addo)

~~~
Sukotto
"This video contains content from BandaiChannel, who has blocked it in your
country on copyright grounds"

It bothers me that crossing an invisible line in the ground blocks access to
stuff that others can see simply by standing on a different patch of dirt.

(With the added irony that this is a Japanese show, in the Japanese language,
and I am physically in Japan at the moment.)

~~~
sdrothrock
Imagine my surprise when I went to look, got the same problem, saw your
comment... my name is Scott and I'm in Tokyo as well.

Do you know about the HN Tokyo Slack chat?
[https://hntokyo.slack.com](https://hntokyo.slack.com)

~~~
Sukotto
I had not heard of it before. Thank you for sharing it.

Unfortunately, the login page shows as invite-only; instructs me to contact
the workspace admin for access; but doesn't give any obvious way to contact
that person. If you are an admin and would like to invite me, I have an email
in my profile.

~~~
delhanty
Can see you found out how to sign-up for the HN Tokyo slack, so welcome
#Sukotto!

For anyone else reading who wants to join there is an auto-invite here:

[https://hntokyo.io/](https://hntokyo.io/)

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spodek
Comments here seem to agree there is too much junk in space, it's out of
control, and a problem.

It's nothing compared to the amount of junk on the ground and in the oceans.
Let's also work on lowering that, I propose starting with each of us --
including you -- refusing disposable stuff and acquiring less stuff in
general.

~~~
cwal37
+1

It's the forgotten point of reduce, reuse, recycle. People are almost always
surprised when I mention that it's a ranked list, heading towards less
efficacy. You might be proud of recycling, but it's the low hanging and least
useful choice. Simply not using things or re-using sturdier goods is far and
away the better choice in terms of waste.

~~~
perl4ever
It's hard to get people excited about the Revolution of Lowered Expectations,
though.

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TeMPOraL
Great visualization!

I must say, I love the "Find all objects from this launch..." option. You can
learn so much.

For instance, I've clicked on some random satellite in the GEO band, and
viewed all objects from its launch:

[https://i.imgur.com/tknQtDk.png](https://i.imgur.com/tknQtDk.png)

The closest object to Earth is a tank, which suggests a high-inclination
launch. I guess Baikonur?

Next, you see a band of debris on less-inclined orbits. Those are close
together, suggesting maybe fairings, or remnants of explosive stage
separation? Stuff in space will drift apart like that, if you give it a slight
push.

And lastly, in GEO band, is the satellite itself.

~~~
greglindahl
Presumably you picked a launch where the Briz, which is a tug stage that the
Russians use for Proton launches to GTO, blew up after releasing the satellite
in GTO. That's not supposed to happen, but at least it results in debris with
a low perigee that will decay in < 25 years, maybe a lot faster.

Briz also drops a fuel tank early on.

Fairings are dropped while sub-orbital. India put one in orbit last year, but
not intentionally.

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etrautmann
This is an unbelievably well done visualization. Really helps one understand
the degree of problematic space junk, though I don't have much of an intuition
for collision probabilities.

~~~
TheRealPomax
arbitrary motion collision is almost zero, the dots are several orders of
magnitude larger than proper scale would be. But still "high enough to require
taking into account when putting something else into orbit".

~~~
strainer
The odds of one object soon colliding with another object in particular are
extreme, but this is a kind of 'birthday paradox' situation. I cant figure it
out at hand, but one satellite out of thousands might end up with the same
'birthday' as another not too infrequently.

~~~
bagels
Collisions really do happen, here is just one of a few that are known:

[http://celestrak.com/events/collision/](http://celestrak.com/events/collision/)

There are probably more that are unknown amongst smaller objects.

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jpm_sd
Similar view from a commercial tool:

[http://apps.agi.com/SatelliteViewer/?Status=Operational](http://apps.agi.com/SatelliteViewer/?Status=Operational)

product page:

[https://www.agi.com/comspoc](https://www.agi.com/comspoc)

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ChrisLeoLabs
LeoLabs offers data and services around low earth orbit objects, and has an
api for data:

Visualization:
[https://platform.leolabs.space/visualization](https://platform.leolabs.space/visualization)

LEO Catalog Pages:
[https://platform.leolabs.space/catalog/L335](https://platform.leolabs.space/catalog/L335)

~~~
fludlight
The visualization shows interesting behavior at the poles. Objects seemingly
spinning around the Arctic and Antarctic. Is that an artifact of rendering or
do they actually behave that way?

~~~
nategri
An orbit that swirls only around the poles wouldn't be a real orbit, but there
_are_ lot of real "nearly vertical" (90 deg inclination) orbits that just
barely miss the poles. Taken together these objects give the impression of the
swirling 'bald spots' you've noticed.

Disclosure: I work for LeoLabs.

~~~
ChrisLeoLabs
Adding to this, if you use the controls, and slow down the render speed, you
will see that the objects are not circling the poles. It's just that there are
many objects in high inclination orbits that pass near the poles, but
comparatively few that actually pass over the poles.

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ngvrnd
Go to the search box and type in "westford needles".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford)

~~~
isseu
Wow, good read. In HN I always discover another interesting secret US Gov
project.

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xefer
China's test of an anti-satellite device left quite a mess:

[http://stuffin.space/?search=1999-025](http://stuffin.space/?search=1999-025)

[https://www.space.com/3415-china-anti-satellite-test-
worriso...](https://www.space.com/3415-china-anti-satellite-test-worrisome-
debris-cloud-circles-earth.html)

------
RobertRoberts
Is it not reasonable to put a laser on a satellite with targeting systems to
shoot some of this stuff? It seems like that would be ideal, no ammo needed,
no super big nets or propellant (or less anyways).

If you target a bigger piece on one side it could cause a reaction to push it
towards earth. If it's a small piece, it may disintegrate it. If it's
spinning, it may alter it's orbit to eventually fall, etc...

Is this an unreasonable concept? I know this stuff is hard to find, but here
we have a data showing we know where some of it is, and add some
radar/lidar/whatever-dar to the satelite and get it a shootin. And no, I don't
think a spacebased laser for shooting junk could harm anything planetside.

~~~
petre
Impractical and it only makes matters worse since it can turn bigger debris
into multiple smaller ones. Rather than shoot stuff with a laser, why not use
a vehicle that generates a magnetic field and at least collects feromagnetic
debris in one place. Then throw the whole thing into the atmosphere to burn
and crash in an unpopulated area.

~~~
RobertRoberts
Lots of debris is likely not magnetic, and much of this stuff is miles away
from eachother traveling at incredible speeds. You couldn't make a device fast
enough to change direction and have enough magnetic force to capture much.

> _...it only makes matters worse since it can turn bigger debris into
> multiple smaller ones._

That's the question, would it though? Real lasers don't behave like hollywood
lasers. And are smaller pieces worse than large ones? Maybe the type of
material could be detected, and laser based cleaning would work perfectly well
with some types of material?

~~~
petre
I suspect a laser would melt and cut up debris. Void is an insulator and the
only way to dissipate heat is through radiation.

Smaller pieces are worse because they're more numerous if you break up a
bigger piece and harder to spot and avoid. Also the probability of a crash
increases with the number of debris.

~~~
RobertRoberts
Sure, but my understanding is that there are so many micrometeors already,
they can't leave windows open to space for any extended period of time.
There's already tiny particles flying around that they can't do a think about
about. This implies that more small stuff shouldn't matter in the least, as
they already have no choice but to have protection against this.

That means, there is a size small enough that it's no longer an issue. For
someone knowledgable, I think it's simple to determine a ratio of
size/speed/material type to determine whether or not to shoot the object with
a laser or some other method.

------
bassman9000
Check the Iridium 33 group

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision)

~~~
musha68k
Wow: “A small piece of Cosmos 2251 satellite debris safely passed by the
International Space Station at 2:38 a.m. EDT, Saturday, March 24, 2012. As a
precaution, the six crew members on board the orbiting complex took refuge
inside the two docked Soyuz rendezvous spacecraft until the debris had
passed.”

------
dang
Discussed in 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9841831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9841831)

~~~
deepsand
Good call out, but what would be even better is seeing the difference between
2015 and 2018. Does anyone have any screenshots from back then?

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strainer
I could not translate the data for the real objects so I mocked up one of
these for my physics project here:

[https://strainer.github.io/fancy#1](https://strainer.github.io/fancy#1)

The satellites are in orbit, their speeds should be quite accurate, the rate
of time can be adjusted and keys are displayed on screen for zooming.

------
gonesilent
Good opportunity here to make a game collecting space junk. Get kids thinking
about such problems now. Maybe a KSP plug-in.

~~~
ilugaslifk
KSP's stock career mode does have missions involving retrieving individual
pieces of debris. Though it's not framed or incentivized as "removing space
junk" in exactly the way you mean.

There's also an anime series about space junk, 'Planetes'
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes))
-- which does the best job I've seen in any visual media of getting orbital
mechanics right, and is generally somewhere between 'The Expanse' and
'Seveneves' on the scale of sci-fi "hardness". And, as far as anime goes, is
relatively light enough on "anime bullshit" to be watchable even if you're
normally not into that.

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z3t4
Is there a convention about in what direction you should put satellites ? I
know the space is crazy big and it's unlikely you will front-collide with a
satellite going the opposite direction. But it would also be crazy to collide
with another object at 7,000 m/s

~~~
blauditore
I guess most are in the same direction as earth rotation for practical
reasons: Relative velocity to the surface is lower, which probably makes
communication easier and requires less energy for launches (as you get a
"boost" from earth).

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Assossa
Search for "SES 10" or "2017-017A" if you want to find the Tesla Roadster.

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thread_id
Brilliant!!! Absolutely brilliant!!! So much detail and functionality.
Recognition to James Yoder for this amazing product!! But also consider what
this represents: From 1957 to now... how much our world has changed.

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

Search for molniya.

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OldArrow
What are yellow dots ? Object A , Object B

~~~
tyldum
Temporary names for recently launched objects pending final classification.

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VikingCoder
I want to also put in my long and lat, and see the sky - what's overhead...?

~~~
sleighboy
This site has an Android app to do just that. [http://www.heavens-
above.com/](http://www.heavens-above.com/)

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aetherspawn
I had no idea there was so much junk above me.

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hokus
awe...

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blackrack
How does one make money from a website like this? To me it just seems like
you're providing a free service with no ads or anything to sustain it.

