Orbital Service

I have been working in the rocket and space industry for more than 5 years. And in this short period of time I managed to work on Sea-Launch, as well as on Land Launch and launch of Orbital Antares launch vehicle. All this is wonderful and interesting, the work is full of impressions, contacts with new people and travels around the world.

But in the entire history of "space exploration" by man, no one really thought about those objects that remain hanging around the Earth. This problem began to be considered only in the last 10 years and still have not found a worthy solution to this issue.

I read a lot about the possible methods of clearing the orbit from small debris 1-10 cm, from the satellites that have spent their time, which hang on the geostationary station, but have not seen anything worthwhile. Not only is the geostationary jammed with idle satellites and the so-called slot in orbit costs already sky-high money, there is also the likelihood that soon these “slots” will not remain at all. And small particles of space debris, which are mainly in low orbit, can harm not only satellites and the ISS, but also the lives of astronauts who go into open space. (I in no way draw an analogy with the movie "Gravity", as this is complete nonsense, not a film, but this is my subjective opinion). In this regard, the space agencies of the world began to develop various ways to eliminate space debris.

There are quite a lot of different articles on this topic on the network and, I think, people who are interested in this have long been aware of possible ways to remove space debris.

I would like to talk about the theoretical development, which will clear the geostationary orbit from idle satellites. As you know, from a distance of 30,000 kilometers from a satellite, the satellite will “fall” for more than 100 years. If this will occur naturally. Accordingly, it should be given a certain impetus and a trajectory along which it will descend and burn in the atmosphere, or tow it to the orbit of “burial”. Of course, all this can be done with the help of existing booster blocks that put new satellites into orbit, leave a fuel reserve in them to go to the idle satellite and give it an impulse to leave orbit. But this is not advisable for economic reasons.

It would be interesting to launch a transport space module, which will use a plasma-ion engine (there is a working sample) and play the role of a space scavenger. The engine service life after the tests was 10,000 hours, which will allow it to successfully move in airless space for a long time. And clear the “slots” for new satellites. Also, in parallel to refuel satellites already in orbit to extend the operational life. Since it is known that many satellites retain working equipment for signal transmission, but due to the fact that the fuel on board ends, they lose their orientation and coverage area. Although they can last for many more years.

This will be a new direction in the rocket and space industry, which will be called "Orbital Service."

Such modules will be a kind of service centers, which will extend the life of satellite devices, as well as clear the orbit of satellites that have expired. Or, to correct satellites deduced unsuccessfully. I personally encountered such a case when launching one of the IntelSat satellites into orbit. They had to spend a lot of fuel to stabilize it in orbit.

It would be interesting to know your opinion on this matter. And who has any ideas for the development of this direction.

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