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Method for cleaning up orbital junk



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 12th 06, 10:56 PM posted to sci.space.tech
Jim Owens
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Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk

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Would it be possible to de-orbit a small bit of orbiting debris by
firing a suborbital cloud of oxygen at it? If launched on a suborbital
rocket, a tank of LOX would evaporate into a cloud, which would merely
rise to a maximum altitude and then fall back to Earth. Any orbiting
paint flakes striking the cloud would be decelerated and de-orbit rather
quickly. Since the cloud would be very large targeting would be easy,
especially if you were aiming at the debris cloud from an exploded upper
stage.

Jim

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  #2  
Old August 14th 06, 12:02 PM posted to sci.space.tech
Kent Paul Dolan
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Posts: 225
Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk

Jim Owens wrote:

Would it be possible to de-orbit a small bit of
orbiting debris by firing a suborbital cloud of
oxygen at it?


Probably, but don't go there.

If launched on a suborbital rocket, a tank of LOX
would evaporate into a cloud, which would merely
rise to a maximum altitude and then fall back to
Earth.


Life isn't that easy, or the earth's atmosphere
wouldn't blend seamlessly into the solar wind.
Likely thermal and radiation pressure would keep
that cloud aloft for a long time.

Any orbiting paint flakes striking the cloud would
be decelerated and de-orbit rather quickly.


I suspect both you and I are underestimating just
how huge a quantity of gas would be required to make
a difference. The earth's atmosphere is measured in
quantities like _gigatons_ of CO2 added per year,
and that to achieve a small fraction of a percent
total concentration.

Since the cloud would be very large targeting
would be easy, especially if you were aiming at
the debris cloud from an exploded upper stage.


But isn't an "exploding upper stage" likely to be
mostly a self-curing problem? I can't believe much
of it would be in a stable orbit on departing the
center of explosion, or that by the time remedial
action could be taken that it would be in any sense
a "small" target, so that again you'd need huge
amounts of LOX or whatever, or that much of it would
be in small enough pieces for your scheme to pay off
very well compared to just letting the existing
atmosphere do its work.

You'd probably make pretty bad enemies among
operators of low earth orbit satellites. From
comments in the long running debate about global
warming over in sci.environment, the "top of the
atmosphere" for earth, which coexists with the LEO
satellites, contains almost no diatomic oxygen, but
only free radicals split by the heavy solar
radiation unfiltered by ozone, which radicals in
turn are deathly reactive with satellite parts.

Massively increase the concentrations of those
radicals where the satellites orbit, and you might
lift eyebrows in some corporate boardrooms of
companies operating such satellites.

Argon might be a better choice, still relatively
cheap, I think, and relatively non-reactive.

FWIW.

Someone who can do the numbers please comment.

xanthian.

  #3  
Old August 20th 06, 03:44 PM posted to sci.space.tech
Carsten Nielsen
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Posts: 8
Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk

Jim Owens wrote:

Would it be possible to de-orbit a small bit of
orbiting debris by firing a suborbital cloud of
oxygen at it?


If launched on a suborbital rocket, a tank of LOX
would evaporate into a cloud, which would merely
rise to a maximum altitude and then fall back to
Earth.


Research Project Highwater. It did roughly the same with water.

Regards

Carsten Nielsen
Denmark

  #4  
Old August 25th 06, 05:21 PM posted to sci.space.tech,misc.misc
Kent Paul Dolan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 225
Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk

Carsten Nielsen wrote:
Jim Owens wrote:


Would it be possible to de-orbit a small bit of
orbiting debris by firing a suborbital cloud of
oxygen at it?


If launched on a suborbital rocket, a tank of
LOX would evaporate into a cloud, which would
merely rise to a maximum altitude and then fall
back to Earth.


Research Project Highwater. It did roughly the
same with water.


Based on the few available useful writeups, that
seemed to be mostly a test of the Saturn 5 booster,
and the water was just ballast. Still, they tried to
do good science with it, perhaps related to interest
in what a fleet of supersonic aircraft would do
dumping water vapor into the high atmosphere???

What they weren't doing, then, was trying to swat
micro-trash out of orbit. That doesn't mean pro or
con now whether the OP's suggestion would work.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/higwater.htm
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...SA2_launch.jpg

FWIW

xanthian.

  #5  
Old September 2nd 06, 01:22 AM posted to sci.space.tech,misc.misc
Allen W. McDonnell
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Posts: 6
Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk


"Kent Paul Dolan" wrote in message
oups.com...
Carsten Nielsen wrote:
Jim Owens wrote:


Would it be possible to de-orbit a small bit of
orbiting debris by firing a suborbital cloud of
oxygen at it?


If launched on a suborbital rocket, a tank of
LOX would evaporate into a cloud, which would
merely rise to a maximum altitude and then fall
back to Earth.


Research Project Highwater. It did roughly the
same with water.


Based on the few available useful writeups, that
seemed to be mostly a test of the Saturn 5 booster,
and the water was just ballast. Still, they tried to
do good science with it, perhaps related to interest
in what a fleet of supersonic aircraft would do
dumping water vapor into the high atmosphere???

What they weren't doing, then, was trying to swat
micro-trash out of orbit. That doesn't mean pro or
con now whether the OP's suggestion would work.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/higwater.htm
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...SA2_launch.jpg

FWIW

xanthian.


Every so often someone mentions the possibility of an unfriendly nation
launching a high suborbital with a variety of payloads, ball bearings, sand,
water and flour all seem to be popular. Basically anything that gets in the
way of something that has been deliberately put in orbit is an unfriendly
act. If you dumped sand all ball bearing on a trajectory that intercepted
the ISSA or satellites for instance the costs would be extremely high to the
USA or owner of the satellite in question.


  #6  
Old September 2nd 06, 04:32 PM posted to sci.space.tech,misc.misc
Carsten Nielsen
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Posts: 8
Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk


Kent Paul Dolan skrev:

Carsten Nielsen wrote:
Research Project Highwater. It did roughly the
same with water.


Based on the few available useful writeups, that
seemed to be mostly a test of the Saturn 5 booster,
and the water was just ballast.


You mean the Saturn 1. The Saturn 5 was used first on Apollo 4.

Regards

Carsten Nielsen
Denmark

  #7  
Old September 4th 06, 03:23 PM posted to sci.space.tech
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default Method for cleaning up orbital junk


Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
Jim Owens wrote:
Any orbiting paint flakes striking the cloud would
be decelerated and de-orbit rather quickly.


I suspect both you and I are underestimating just
how huge a quantity of gas would be required to make
a difference. The earth's atmosphere is measured in
quantities like _gigatons_ of CO2 added per year,
and that to achieve a small fraction of a percent
total concentration.


I could be wrong but I suspect the OP was suggesting a small,
targetted, localised cloud to deorbit specific objects rather than a
huge, planet-covering blanket that would slow down *everything*
currently up there.

From reading the OP I envisaged a kind of Planetes (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes ) scenario, with a (probably
unmanned) vehicle up there for the express purpose of intercepting and
squirting gas at any particular bits of debris deemed problematic by
ground control.

  #8  
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