We talk a lot about the danger of space debris, and we're looking for solutions. The European Space Agency (ESA), for example, intends to… give debris a hug. Literally
Of all possibilities that ESA has looked at – which included casting a net over a non-operational spacecraft, catching it with a harpoon or with a robotic arm, – it selected two mechanical instruments that resemble a pair of fantasy tentacle arms that will get a hold of the object and deorbit it.
This endeavor will be financed out of the 412 million euro funding ESA's programs ensuring safety in space got at its ministerial council in November.
Holder Krag, chief at ESA’s Space Debris Office, believes, as he stated during the Helsinki Space Week, that non-operational satellites should be removed from the orbit more frequently, therefore, the technology must be affordable and reusable.
The arms, he explained, were considered a good idea because they are 'like tentacles that embrace the object because you can capture the object before you touch it', with the embrace helping fixate the object, which is crucial if you want to keep something from drifting away in space.
What will happen to the defunct satellite once it's held firmly in the mechanical embrace? A very peculiar thing never attempted at any time in the past: an old satellite whose condition we know nothing about will be dragged down.
How often can we hope to be able to perform feats like this? With only one-third of the overall population of satellites in orbit (about 4, 500) operating, probably, quite often.
ESA receives loads of collision alerts for the 20 spacecraft in its care, maneuvering if the risk seems high (1 out of 10, 000).
Missions can't proceed during such maneuvers, and, besides, they, of course, take fuel.
Kraig explained that, 'if you run a very expensive science mission, in particular, and you have to interrupt the data for one hour in order to fit the maneuver in, you have a community of 1,000 scientists waiting for the data and that’s an economic loss that I wouldn’t even know how to put in numbers.'
It really seems like things will get much better with that mechanical embrace.
ClearSpace-1 set to launch in 2025 will become the first mission of this sort, pioneering in in-orbit servicing and debris removal market. The highly professional team of debris researchers behind the startup called ClearSpace based at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is to submit its final proposal before the project begins in March 2020. Its leader Luc Piguet has said that with 3000 dead satellites, only 2000 functioning in orbit today, and thousands planned to come in a very near future, the 'issue is more pressing than ever' to 'remove failed satellites from this highly trafficked region.'
Helen Borodinaelena.k.borodina@gmail.com
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December 09, 2019 at 07:19PM
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