A group called The Gateway Earth Development Groupis a collection of academics from universities around the world, formed in order to turn the potential catastrophe into resources. By 2050, Gateway Earth, a space station, will be able to float in orbit and will be equipped with a facility to recycle old satellites and other debris
Author: Jez Turner, Lecturer in Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Nottingham. Translation: Avi Blizovsky
About 22 large objects orbit the Earth, including active and dead satellites as well as upper stages of rockets from long-completed space missions. If you include the equipment dropped by astronauts on spacewalks and the debris from crashed satellites, up to one centimeter in size, there are about a million pieces of space junk in orbit around Earth.
These numbers are probably much lower than reality. As more and more satellites and launcher parts are added every year, the collisions of these pieces of space debris will become more frequent. Losing a satellite means that the TV connection will be weak or that the weather forecast will be a little less reliable, but it means that planes will not be able to navigate properly and residents will not know about a tornado approaching them.
A long-term solution is required to clear the space. A group called The Gateway Earth Development Groupis a collection of academics from universities around the world, formed in order to turn the potential catastrophe into resources. By 2050, Gateway Earth, a space station, will be able to float in orbit and will be equipped with a facility for recycling old satellites and other waste.
There are two main orbits for satellites - low earth orbit (LEO) which extends from an altitude of 200 km to a thousand km above the earth. There is also the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth every ninety minutes, with thousands of other satellites. The second orbit is the geostationary orbit located in the strip around the equator at an altitude of 36,000 km. The forces acting on the satellites cause them to be above a single point on Earth, a useful feature for weather forecasting and communication satellites.
LEO orbit is dense, and there is a great danger of creating a shower of debris so large that these particles collide with other satellites, creating more and more debris particles in a chain reaction. In the end, the entire track may go out of use. Many fragments already fill LEO and that is where the technological developments that try to get rid of it are concentrated. The situation is much more complicated in the geostationary orbit.
When a communication or weather satellite is nearing the end of its life, the owners will try to raise it to a higher orbit known as the "Satellite Graveyard" where they will remain to drift at least 400-300 km from an agreed protected area. However, only 80% of all satellites actually arrive at the end of their lives in GEO orbit to the satellite cemetery. The remaining twenty percent require urgent care, and this is where a space recycling facility can help. (An example of this is the Amos 5 satellite that suddenly stopped operating in 2015, and it endangers the other satellites near it AB).
The cemetery is also an area without a person in charge. Bright flashes of light were seen here and there in this orbit, and it is believed that the satellites collided or exploded due to too much fuel remaining inside them. These fragments could fall into GEO orbit and threaten the satellites there.
The existing law does not allow a collective solution for space debris. Even if an out-of-control satellite is about to collide with a functional satellite worth billions of dollars, the international agreements prevent the possibility of removing it without the owner's permission, even if there is a space rover that can connect with it and drive it to the cemetery orbit.
Through repair, re-use for other missions or recycling of satellites and other space debris at a facility in GEO orbit, it will be possible to use the materials to build a spacecraft to explore the solar system or a forward space outpost such as a lunar base. Using materials that are already floating around the earth mean that there are no launch costs. Also, using these materials will reduce space waste.
The recycling of the satellites could not only produce raw materials for reuse in space, but also a revenue stream to finance the construction and maintenance of the station. The group's research showed that there is an orbit at an altitude of 150 km above the geostationary orbit, from which there would be easy access to the geostationary orbit. From there, it will be possible to tow complete satellites using space rovers that will attach to it to the recycling center for maintenance if it is required and return the satellite to use.
The provision of this service alone could provide the station operators with approximately 8 billion dollars per year, but the space laws covering this activity are not up to date and require revision. Fortunately, there are people at the UN who are already working on this and the members of the group are working with them to overcome the obstacles.
If these satellites are not fit to return to service, they can be used for other purposes. Some of the recycled materials can be printed in 24D, and a radiation shield can be made from them for the station itself. The studies showed that the efficiency of the solar collectors of inactive satellites decreases by 15% after XNUMX years, so that they can be disassembled again and used to generate electrical power for the station.
Some of the most advanced cameras are in space. They can be installed on Gateway Earth or on new satellites to scan the skies for asteroids that might collide with Earth. The business of launching communication and weather satellites is expected to grow at a tremendous rate, the existence of such an outpost on a route that will allow managing them all, will be essential.
Gateway Earth entrepreneurs plan to increase revenue in the future by using the station as a hotel in space, as a satellite and as infrastructure for building spacecraft and refueling spacecraft that will travel between the planets. We need the space equivalent of the wake-up call people heard in the movie "Blue Planet 2" about plastic pollution in the ocean. There is still time, but clearing Earth's orbit needs to be done soon. during the next decade. 150 new GEO satellites are planned for launch and they will significantly increase the risk of collision.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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The idea of the shadow does not seem applicable, because to create a shadow of 3 square kilometers from the shadow that is hundreds of kilometers high, you need a surface with a much larger diameter.
My proposal: to connect a shade network (or sunshade) in an area of 3 square kilometers and sell shade to cities that suffer from heat at noon. They take 4-10 satellites that hold the shade network and can move with it from place to place and sell shade to the cities between 11 and 16 in the afternoon. Imagine Tel Aviv in August, humid and hot, suddenly a shadow covers the whole city and where you can't walk around the city in the sun there is a shadow like a cloud and life in the city at noon becomes much more pleasant. Maybe this way (with massive sun shields) we can fight global warming. Each country will send 20 such systems and reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth.
If you were a city, how much would you be willing to pay for shade during the afternoon for all the summer months?
Circulation of satellites
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