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Orbital rescue "tug"... how practical?
Hi...
I am not at all versed in the complexities, energy requirements, and economics of spacecraft orbits, either near-earth or within the overall Lagrange orbital zoo. But the recent demise of the Kepler spacecraft mission leads me to ask a naive question. What would it take to develop one or more Space- Tugs, either to live in near-earth orbit or at least launchable from the usual launch facilities? Such an unmanned vehicle's only job would be to tend ailing spacecraft, perhaps merely to journey out to, say, the L2 point, grab the patient and haul it slowly in to be adjusted by human crews on perhaps the ISS. The tug's propulsion might be an ion drive, solar and/or radioisotope powered, with a tank of argon for propellant. I cannot be the only one who's thought about such a way to save or enhance missions, unworkable as it might be. |
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Orbital rescue "tug"... how practical?
[[this is really more about "space science" than astronomy per se,
so I've set followups to sci.space.science]] stargene wrote: What would it take to develop one or more Space- Tugs, either to live in near-earth orbit or at least launchable from the usual launch facilities? Such an unmanned vehicle's only job would be to tend ailing spacecraft, perhaps merely to journey out to, say, the L2 point, grab the patient and haul it slowly in to be adjusted by human crews on perhaps the ISS. This idea is a perennial "wouldn't it be nice if" proposal. It sounds tempting, but there are a lot of potential (and expensive!) problems, so it's never (yet) been built. Some misc problems include: * it's often hard for even human astronauts to grab a satellite; doing this by long-distance remote control would be harder * ISS doesn't really have a currently-empty "garage" facility where astronauts could work on an ailing satellite * ISS's astronauts have essentially no spare time available for satellite repair work * the USA might not allow ISS to be used for repair of "unfriendly" country's satellites, and "unfriendly" countries might be worried about possible sabotage of their satellites during the repair process Propulsion for a space tug is a BIG problem: * any low-thrust scheme like solar-electric ion propulsion is going to spend a LONG time spiralling in and out through the Van Allen radiation belts to get between ISS (in low orbit) and a high-orbit satellite; this means expensive/heavy radiation shielding on the space tug AND a high risk of the satellite suffering serious radiation damage * High-thrust chemical rockets would need a LOT of fuel for a space-tug mission: the space tug needs (very roughly speaking) 4 major velocity changes (rocket burns) for the mission [#1 to leave parking orbit, #2 to rendezvous with the to-be-rescued satellite, #3 to enter an orbit back to the "garage", and #4 to rendezvous with the "garage" again] All that fuel would need to be carried up to ISS in the first place, which further runs up the cost. Apart from the fuel cost, actually using this system wouldn't be cheap: astronaut training (for the remote-control "grab-a-satellite" maneuver and for the "garage" repairs back at ISS) is VERY expensive. I seem to recall that the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission cost something like US$ 450 million; maybe the later servicing missions were a bit cheaper, but they were still not at all "cheap". And finally, the typical malfunctioning satellite is close to the end of its design lifespan. The satellite owner would get to choose between the space-tug-repair of what would remain an old satellite, and launching a new satellite (which takes much less rocket fuel, because there's no return trip or ISS rendezvous involved) which could use the latest technology. Returning to something closer to astronomy, it's instructive to consider the experience of the Hubble Space Telescope. Recall that the HST primary mirror was beautifully made... with the wrong shape. Being able to service it on-orbit saved the mission. And by replacing the science instruments, the successive servicing missions have vastly increased HST's science capabilities. But I have heard it suggested that we might in the end have spent less money if we'd just abandoned the defective HST and built and launched a new one, and similarly launched new ones every N years with new instruments. Alas, I have never seen a serious analysis of this tradeoff. It is worth noting that the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope will be launched into a very high orbit which will NOT be acessible for repairs if anything goes wrong. ciao, -- -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA on sabbatical in Canada starting August 2012 "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam |
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