When life gives you space debris, make satellites. Every time a satellite completes its mission, it is retired to a ‘graveyard orbit and left to rot. As a result of this, far from efficient practice, billions of dollars worth of satellite communication technology, precious metals, solar panels, and circuits are wallowing overhead. That’s a shocking waste of resources, space exploration is expensive, and we can’t afford this multi-billion dollar dump yard. But what if we could put this “trash” to good use?
One scheme to mitigate climate change involves sending large mirrors into space to reflect sunlight away and cool the Earth. Naturally, no one wants to pay, but thankfully, no one has to. We already have a trove of reflective satellite debris in low earth orbit. Many of these satellites are fitted with metals to reflect sunlight away and protect them from overheating. Furthermore, they often have a small amount of fuel because they were retired when their mission ended before they ran out of fuel. Through small fuel burns, we could reposition these satellites to implement a solar radiation management scheme.
Obviously, it’s not easy. Companies have lost contact with and sight of most of their retired satellites. Worse, many have collided and broken into fragments, such that they can’t be manipulated from Earth any more. Even so, there’s hope. We could send a small fleet of micro-satellites into the ‘graveyard orbit’ to nudge debris into position to act as mirrors. This would still be much cheaper than building and sending a fresh set of mirrors into space.
Besides geoengineering, we can also use space debris for experimental purposes. Researchers are notoriously hard-pressed for funds. What if, instead of paying through the nose to hitchhike on rockets and take their made-from-scratch satellites to space, scientists could reconnoiter space debris for research? Instead of retiring inefficient satellites, agencies and companies can hand them over to the public domain, and let hobbyists and researchers tinker with the satellite material.
If more people and scientists are able to conduct space-based experiments, space technology development will accelerate. There are many decent ideas like space solar power systems, orbital rings and mass drivers which have been sidelined by premier space agencies but could be pursued by hobbyists and private companies with access to space debris satellite tools. Furthermore, debris could be harnessed for secondary but still important purposes like detecting deadly asteroids, monitoring climate parameters like vegetation cover, and conducting non-mainstream pure science.
If there is so much potential for space debris, then why hasn’t anyone capitalised on it? For one thing, every company or agency decides how to dispose of useless satellites independently and at their own discretion. As a result, nobody knows where all of the debris is precisely enough to make use of it. Furthermore, these institutions don’t disclose how anybody else could communicate with the satellite, for example, by revealing which frequency to use to communicate with it. Thirdly, at first glance, it seems easier to send new satellites to space instead of struggling to revive old and crippled ones.
Nevertheless, space debris has potential. If space agencies and satellite companies create a database where they record the location, orbital parameters, access codes, communication frequencies etc. of their satellites, then thousands of CubeSat designers, model rocketeers, under-financed researchers, ethical hackers, and curious students will make creative and productive use of what was dismissed as trash.
We got help from:
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/981875203/satellite-launched-on-mission-to-remove-space-trash
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/library/find/bibliographies/space_debris https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/The_current_state_of_space_debris
http://www.themarketforideas.com/space-debris-visualizing-the-risk-and-informing-stakeholders-a190/
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