Space Junk

Amazon, the company, is in the satellite launch business. It is behaving like a sovereign nation. Of course, launches, orbits and time in service have to be coordinated with the military. Not knowing what's up there would be a hazard to navigation.
 
TomcatViP said:
Sending them to the Sun will require a lot of energy that might prove too expensive to sustain. But the idea might make sense if dead sats are first collected (empty starship?), eventually processed to retrieve materials and electronics and then de-orbited in bulk for the sun to burn.
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As I have already mentioned here, the easiest and the cheapest way to deal with space junk ( dead sats ) is to send them to the atmosphere of Earth and make them burn down there.
 
#CZ5B debris found near the border of Malaysia and Indonesia, that is more than 1200km from the splash location disclosed by CMSA
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1554163205261258752
View: https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1554163205261258752

https://twitter.com/x/status/1554514723843948544
View: https://twitter.com/cnsawatcher/status/1554514723843948544


Fairing of Long March 5B Y3 rocket (CZ5B) found in Philippine . Expecting briefings from CNSA/CMS. Source: share.api.weibo.cn/share/32535354…
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So, CZ-5B recap: signficant debris falls in Kalimantan, Indonesia and Sawarak, Malaysia (both on Borneo). No casualties or property damage reported, but debris is near villages and a few hundred metres either way could have been a different story.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1554113609248161792
View: https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1554113609248161792
 
Send up a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer with thrusters instead of tracks and an electric powerplant and solar panels.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1683561138317828096
View: https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/1683561138317828096


#Aeolus reentry #operations, day 1: first manoeuvre successfully completed!

Today saw the largest thruster firing in #Aeolus’s five years in orbit:

Altitude lowered by ~ 30 km
⏲️Burn duration: 37 min 24 secs
⛽️Fuel consumption: ~ 6 kg

Find out more️ https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/07/24/aeolus-reentry-live/
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Remember, Aeolus was not designed for this ending. It was ‘meant’ to naturally fall in an uncontrolled reentry – its propulsion system and fuel reserves were not designed to allow the satellite to be controlled down to the required altitudes for a fully controlled reentry.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1683561805430374402
View: https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/1683561805430374402


With this campaign, ESA engineers and operators are pushing the satellite to the limits of what it can do.

The success of this first manoeuvre bodes well for the rest of the campaign.

#ByeByeAeolus️
#SustainableSpace♻️
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Related video that explains more:

View: https://youtu.be/f1FKeqJVvXI
 
I’m late to the party. So much to address. I spoke to Dr. Kessler of Kessler syndrome notoriety due to working on space law Liability. On a call, I’ve never really met him. Paraphrasing, “I wish there was never such a thing as Kessler Syndrome” me “sure, it looks bleak” him “No, I mean I retired and every year someone tracks me down and I have to do this interview”…as it stands the law is intentionally vague. Who own the airspace over the U.S. above 60,000ft to what point? The Von Karman line? Which, varies in locale. Signatories of the more established rules say you cant own anything in space. Orbits and frequencies are kind of owned. 2nd rule expedited by Sputnik beating us and overflying is kind of a lot. No nukes in space. Guess where ICBMs go. Someone planted a flag on the moon. Traditionally that’s the beginning of a claim. Nations buy a LOT of insurance, in part because the launching nation bares the liability on objects that come down where they shouldn’t. We hit Australia. Russia hit Canada etc. Hydrozene is bad for scrappers. A lot to put but that’s a good start. All factors In debris.
 
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For details on most objects I recommend space-track.org. No affiliation just my preferred site. They maintain a catalogue of “SSA” space situational awareness objects. The former term for the conglomeration of all the tech doing space activities. The objects making it in the catalogue are added chronologically. For example the ISS is 25544. 00003 and 00005 of the top of my head are the oldest still up there. There hasn’t been the rule that anything going up has to be be out of the way within 99 years very long. And that rule can be met by going into an out of the way orbit with thousands of years persisting. And there is a Tesla with a mannequin somewhere not in earth orbit.
 
Let's suppose one smartass guy want to "mine" old comsats in GEO graveyard orbit - to clean the belt and recover precious metals (figure a Starship with a canadarm picking dead sats).

If he collects an old russian sat, does that cause any issue ? I mean, is Russia still the owner of that junk, and thus would oppose the pick ?

Same for private companies like Intelsat.
 
Space observer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks rocket movements, said the Kenyan agency could be “mistaken” about the source of the debris.

He emphasised that it could not have come from a space shuttle’s rocket booster. “Totally impossible. The SRBs never reached orbit and have not been ‘in the sky’ since 2011,” the researcher from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said on social media.

“I’m not convinced it’s not from an airplane. Don’t see obvious evidence of reentry heating,” the astrophysicist told Inside Outer Space.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/space/rocket-debris-crash-kenya-mystery-b2673113.html
 
The Trump administration is poised to kill federal research into pollution from satellites and rockets, including some caused by Elon Musk’s space companies, raising new conflict-of-interest questions about the billionaire SpaceX and Starlink owner.

The pollution appears to be accumulating in the stratosphere at alarming levels. Some fear it could destroy the ozone layer, potentially expose some people to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation or help further destabilize the earth’s climate during the climate crisis.
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…

The two research projects would have had the potential to eventually lead to new regulations, costs or logistical challenges for Musk’s companies and the commercial space industry, experts say.

They were part of the office of atmospheric research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which the Trump administration is now proposingto kill. The administration says it is “eliminating the federal government’s support of woke ideology”, but critics say it’s protecting a prolific donor and political ally.

“Obviously there’s political motivation, and Elon Musk’s business interests are tied up in Noaa’s work,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit, which has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for emails around the projects.

Whitehouse added: “These are programs the government wanted to build up, that had bipartisan support, and suddenly they’re being gutted with no rhyme, reason or adequate explanation.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/space-pollution-elon-musk?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-5
 
A new listing of the 50 most concerning pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit is dominated by relics more than a quarter-century old, primarily dead rockets left to hurtle through space at the end of their missions.

"The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem," said Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. "Seventy-six percent of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century, and 88 percent of the objects are rocket bodies. That's important to note, especially with some disturbing trends right now."

The 50 objects identified by McKnight and his coauthors are the ones most likely to drive the creation of more space junk in low-Earth orbit (LEO) through collisions with other debris fragments. The objects are whizzing around the Earth at nearly 5 miles per second, flying in a heavily trafficked part of LEO between 700 and 1,000 kilometers (435 to 621 miles) above the Earth.
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Russia and the Soviet Union lead the pack with 34 objects listed in McKnight's Top 50, followed by China with 10, the United States with three, Europe with two, and Japan with one. Russia's SL-16 and SL-8 rockets are the worst offenders, combining to take 30 of the Top 50 slots. Here's the Top 10:

  1. A Russian SL-16 rocket launched in 2004
  2. Europe's Envisat satellite launched in 2002
  3. A Japanese H-II rocket launched in 1996
  4. A Chinese CZ-2C rocket launched in 2013
  5. A Soviet SL-8 rocket launched in 1985
  6. A Soviet SL-16 rocket launched in 1988
  7. Russia's Kosmos 2237 satellite launched in 1993
  8. Russia's Kosmos 2334 satellite launched in 1996
  9. A Soviet SL-16 rocket launched in 1988
  10. A Chinese CZ-2D rocket launched in 2019
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https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/...ty-much-stopped-littering-in-low-earth-orbit/
 
I never did have much use for CFD, though that has been described as a moving target as computers get more powerful--but I would like to see a computer simulation of what LEO would look like if a nearly full Starship exploded in Earth orbit.

I am not aware of any such simulations appearing in the Journal of Rockets or Acts Astronautica.
 
publiusr said:
I never did have much use for CFD,
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When did you ever perform or use CFD? How do you know what it is used for and by who?
publiusr said:
computer simulation of what LEO would look like if a nearly full Starship exploded in Earth orbit.
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About the same as an SLS EUS with payload.
Why would it be different full vs empty? Propellant does not become orbital debris

......And what does CFD have to do with orbital debris projections?
 
Byeman said:
......And what does CFD have to do with orbital debris projections?
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Simulation a spray in vacuum. Remember, SuperHeavy performed in a way that baffled some experts in the field, proving the value of large scale flight tests.
 
publiusr said:
Simulation a spray in vacuum.
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That is not CFD (Computational fluid dynamics). A "spray in a vacuum" is not a fluid
publiusr said:
Remember, SuperHeavy performed in a way that baffled some experts in the field, proving the value of large scale flight tests.
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Wrong takeaway. CFD can and does replace wind tunnel and large scale flight tests.
However, it can't cover all realms of flight and parts of entry trajectories is one of them, because hot gases and plasma react differently.
 

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