The Space Junk Agency we need

There’s already an anime of that; forgot the name.

I think ultimately the only cost effective solution will be huge solar farms with lasers the can impart thrust by burning the top surfaces of satellites as them come into range. It would be a slow process but it wouldn’t involve much reaction mass or energy input once you had the platforms set up. Slow constant burns should eventually push junk downwards over a long enough time frame. Anything super high risk that needs to be moved in a hurry would require a more hands on, less energy efficient mechanism.
 
There’s already an anime of that; forgot the name.

I think ultimately the only cost effective solution will be huge solar farms with lasers the can impart thrust by burning the top surfaces of satellites as them come into range. It would be a slow process but it wouldn’t involve much reaction mass or energy input once you had the platforms set up. Slow constant burns should eventually push junk downwards over a long enough time frame. Anything super high risk that needs to be moved in a hurry would require a more hands on, less energy efficient mechanism.

Are you saying that conventional explosives would not work well in space?
Would they provide too great a range of size of chunks of debris?
... running the risk that a few remaining bits of debris would be big enough to penetrate the atmosphere and hit the earth's surface intact?
What about clamping on retro-rockets to de-orbit space junk?
 
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@riggerrob : you'd certainly like this movie then ;)
I found the "Space Sweepers" trailers on Netflix and they look interesting.

Thanks for the suggestion. I enjoyed "Space Sweepers." Parts may have been a bit corny, but overall it was a rollicking piece of space opera.
 
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SpaceX has long emphasized the ability of its Starlink satellites to autonomously maneuver to avoid conjunctions. The company said that, between December 2021 and May 2022, Starlink satellites performed nearly 7,000 collision avoidance maneuvers, of which 1,700 were linked to Russian ASAT debris.
While SpaceX may be able to manage those conjunctions with its technology, it may be more difficult for other operators of satellite constellations. “If you didn’t have that automated system taking care of a spike like this, it could be really challenging to work it though,” he said.

 
Biden-Harris administration on the right path to create an US Space Junk agency:

We believe the new space age needs new rules. Because here on the ground, the regulatory frameworks we rely on to shape space policy were largely built for another era,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, said in a press release accompanying the vote.

It is important to remember that while Rosenworcel joined Harris at the meeting in Oakland today, the FCC by law is an independent entity that does not answer to the White House.

As a first step, the FCC issued a “notice of inquiry” that “will examine the opportunities and challenges of space missions like satellite refueling, inspecting and repairing in-orbit spacecraft, capturing and removing debris, and transforming materials through manufacturing while in space.”

Link originally by @Forest Green in the US Space Force thread:

 
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France just last week became the ninth nation to publicly join the moratorium — following Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Switzerland, and Australia.

 
TransAstra and Think Orbital propose launching capture bags in TransAstra Worker Bee spacecraft. After moving into the orbit of the targeted debris, the Worker Bee would transport the debris to ThinkOrbital’s ThinkPlatform.

The proposed ThinkPlatform would be about 37 meters in diameter with a volume of 4,000 cubic meters. ThinkOrbital plans to equip the ThinkPlatform with tools for inspecting, repairing and recycling objects.

 
Nearly 10% of all large sulfuric acid particles, the main component of aerosols formed in the stratosphere, contained anthropogenic space metal hitchhikers. “That’s a big number, considering we didn’t know it would be abundant at all,” Abou-Ghanem said.

According to a collaborative report by McKinsey & Company and the World Economic Forum, the number of satellites orbiting Earth could triple in the next decade. At that rate, 50% of sulfuric acid particles could be contaminated, Abou-Ghanem said.

 
 
— UPDATE 21 FEBRUARY, 17:45 CET —
This is likely the final update prior to the reentry and break up of ERS-2. Consider following @esaoperations on X (formerly Twitter) for any further info.

ESA’s Space Debris Office currently predicts that the reentry of ESA’s ERS-2 satellite will take place at:

17:05 UTC (18:05 CET) on 21 February 2024

The uncertainty in this prediction is now just +/- 0.55 hours.
 
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