Omega made a bold step to become involved in ClearSpace as it will be important for future spaceflight missions beyond Earth.
A critical mission awaits us: the preservation of a clean and sustainable cosmos for future generations. Acknowledging this monumental challenge, OMEGA boldly steps up to the plate with its commitment to ClearSpace.
This dynamic collaboration signifies OMEGA's unwavering dedication to forging a path towards an environmentally conscious tomorrow, extending its influence from the depths of the ocean and the surface of our planet to the bustling and cluttered realms of space.
Interesting side note (at least to me):
When I was getting my undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas in the late 80s, one of the final classes was the Senior Design Project, where we responded to NASA request for a satellite mission design, came up with a concept, speced out orbits, flight systems, etc. Really fun. My group project was to design a system to retrieve orbital debris. Our choice was to use nets and smaller pods attached to main bus.
Anyway, we presented the concept to Johnson Space Center, wrote a report, and it is still archived at NASA:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19920016139
I moved on, with my research evolving into satellite earth observations - I’m now a professor in an oceanography program. But I have noticed in the last three years that old report has started to be downloaded and cited - I get notices via a citation report from my university at least once a month or so. Kinda cool an old class project idea has finally come to fruition and that old work is still being read.
Your research focused on reuse which makes sense. As far as I can tell the project Omega is hooked into is based on de orbiting. I am not sure the infinite and mostly empty cosmos needs our help to keep it clean, but the earth sure does. I hope marketing have fully considered the project @SpeedyPhill . I can see why we need to clear debris out of key orbits as we put more and more stuff up there, but that is mainly about protecting satellites and keeping space usable. I’m less convinced that throwing it all back into the atmosphere and burning it up is environmentally the right answer. These things contain aluminium, titanium, batteries and all sorts of other metals and materials, and burning them up doesn’t make them disappear. It turns some of that material into extremely fine particles and metal oxides directly in the upper atmosphere. There is already research looking at whether increasing amounts of aluminium oxide from satellite re-entry could affect atmospheric chemistry and the ozone layer. We simply don’t understand the long-term cumulative effect yet. Having spent a fortune getting all that valuable material into space in the first place, surely longer term we should be looking at whether some of it can be collected, recycled or stored for future use rather than simply chucking it back at Earth. Even thousands of tiny fragments eventually add up. @Donn Chambers has the right idea (costs more short term of course) hence why authorities might not like it. Burning it in our upper atmosphere might put us all on a path to controlled disintegration long term ;0)
To clarify, my project also de-orbited the items and expected them to burn up. We just collected smaller pieces in pods, then de-orbited them all at once.
Interesting side note (at least to me):
When I was getting my undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas in the late 80s, one of the final classes was the Senior Design Project, where we responded to NASA request for a satellite mission design, came up with a concept, speced out orbits, flight systems, etc. Really fun. My group project was to design a system to retrieve orbital debris. Our choice was to use nets and smaller pods attached to main bus.
Anyway, we presented the concept to Johnson Space Center, wrote a report, and it is still archived at NASA:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19920016139
I moved on, with my research evolving into satellite earth observations - I’m now a professor in an oceanography program. But I have noticed in the last three years that old report has started to be downloaded and cited - I get notices via a citation report from my university at least once a month or so. Kinda cool an old class project idea has finally come to fruition and that old work is still being read.
Thanks for clarifying Donn, in the modern example, the capture vehicle goes down with the debris, one assumes that has propellent, batteries and electronics etc. Was yours just the net?
I guess we have to prove these technologies but (subject to seeing any research) it does seem possible burning up lots of at times exotic material in the upper atmosphere may have some consequences and that will increase as we launch more. I guess it would be a huge cost to push it out of orbit sun bound and again it seems a shame to waste material we spent money on getting it up there, especially if we need shielding material for radiation protection.
That IS really cool that this is looked at again today !
And for my curiosity , if debri is moving that fast like 20000 Km/h ? you cant just stop it i guess, would it destroy anything put in its path due to such high energy impact ?
So whatever is usd for collecting must move at equal of faster speed ?
