Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
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Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#2Really pumped to see someone is working on this - going to be a massive problem that no major government appears to be gauging the seriousness of right now.
Tim Urban of Wait But Why has a really good blog post that is an awesome overview of this issue:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colon...
Go to the Space Debris blue boxer specifically.
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#3On the same PSLV C38 rocket was Aalto-1, a 3U cubesat that has electrostatic plasmabrake that is a different de-orbiting experiment. It uses 100 m long hair thin wire that is electrically charged and brakes the satellite by interaction with the ionosphere. https://www.electric-sailing.fi/papers/Plasmabrake.pdf
It has an advantage of not needing any propellant and being very light weight but it doesn't work above the ionosphere. It should work for de-orbiting small satellites in LEO. The same principle should be possible to be used as a solar sail for interplanetary travel by interacting with the solar wind.
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#4Cant wait until, 45 years from now, when the first one of these are hacked and satellites are prematurely de-orbiting
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#5I'm pretty sure you don't need to de-orbit CubeSats manually. The drag on the satellite will slowly decay the orbit of CubeSats much faster then most satellites.
We also already use "de-orbiting" systems in real satellites: we just burn their remaining fuel in the RCSs to either push them back into space (the normally talked about junk cloud) or we pull them into a decaying orbit (what already happens with CubeSats). The only reason this is done in the big-leagues is because the average "normal" satellite is about the size of a small car.
A CubeSat will effectively be taken out by gravity/drift very quickly (most missions are 2 months to 2 years) and it is perfectly safe to do so.
I don't see how this is a "Space Junk Solution" and from the article:
> "The planned demonstration is an important milestone to develop and promote the use of this technology," Krag told Space.com. [Space Junk Explained: How Orbital Debris Threatens Future of Spaceflight (Infographic)]
1. This is already something we do
2. This is no needed in CubeSats
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#6I'm pretty sure you don't need to de-orbit CubeSats manually. The drag on the satellite will slowly decay the orbit of CubeSats much faster then most satellites. We also already use "de-orbiting" systems in real satellites: we just burn their remaining fuel in the RCSs to either push them back into space (the normally talked about junk cloud) or we pull them into a decaying orbit (what already happens with CubeSats).…
I don't think the point is to deorbit cubesats, it's as an independent module to deorbit larger satellites.
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#7I'm pretty sure you don't need to de-orbit CubeSats manually. The drag on the satellite will slowly decay the orbit of CubeSats much faster then most satellites. We also already use "de-orbiting" systems in real satellites: we just burn their remaining fuel in the RCSs to either push them back into space (the normally talked about junk cloud) or we pull them into a decaying orbit (what already happens with CubeSats).…
> That's where D3 comes in. The device has independent power supply and communication systems. That means that D3 can deorbit a satellite even if the rest of the spacecraft is completely unresponsive, D-Orbit representatives said.
Totally independent system to provide redundancy for de-orbit in case control to the main satellite is lost, which is a problem.
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#8Cant wait until, 45 years from now, when the first one of these are hacked and satellites are prematurely de-orbiting
How's this any different than hacking the main satellite and causing it to deorbit?
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#9I'm pretty sure you don't need to de-orbit CubeSats manually. The drag on the satellite will slowly decay the orbit of CubeSats much faster then most satellites. We also already use "de-orbiting" systems in real satellites: we just burn their remaining fuel in the RCSs to either push them back into space (the normally talked about junk cloud) or we pull them into a decaying orbit (what already happens with CubeSats).…
People want to send CubeSats higher than LEO, and, this is a prototype of something they want to build much larger versions of. Do you know if any existing satellites have a dedicated power and communications system for just deorbiting? Something that doesn't necessarily fail if the rest of the satellite has a problem.
Re: Space Junk Solution? Tiny Cubesat to Test New De-Orbiting Thruster
#10Really pumped to see someone is working on this - going to be a massive problem that no major government appears to be gauging the seriousness of right now. Tim Urban of Wait But Why has a really good blog post that is an awesome overview of this issue: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colon... Go to the Space Debris blue boxer specifically.
I've recently read about numerous space-junk-related experiments funded by "major governments". And remember that these same governments have already agreed on a guideline for deorbiting. It doesn't appear to be tough enough yet, but there's a mechanism for working together on a better standard.