Tag: Orbital Debris

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Starfish Space will look into a plan to inspect space junk

Illustration: Otter spacecraft in orbit
Artwork shows the Otter inspection spacecraft silhouetted against Earth as it closes in on a target satellite. (Starfish Space Illustration)

Even as Starfish Space works to get its first orbital demonstration mission back on track, the Tukwila, Wash.-based startup has won a contract from NASA to look into an even more ambitious project to inspect orbital debris up close.

The newly announced study contract follows up on earlier work that Starfish has done to prove out features of its system for making a rendezvous with other spacecraft in orbit — and either servicing them or guiding them to their demise.

Some of those features — including Starfish’s Cetacean relative navigation software and its Cephalopod autonomous guidance software — could be tested sometime in the next few months on the company’s Otter Pup prototype spacecraft, which was sent into orbit in June but was forced into an unfortunate spin during deployment. Starfish stabilized the spin in August and is currently making sure that all of Otter Pup’s systems are in working order for future tests.

NASA’s follow-up contract, awarded through the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR, calls for Starfish Space to assess the feasibility of using its full-scale Otter satellite servicing vehicle to rendezvous with large pieces of space debris and inspect them.

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Cosmic Space

Russian anti-satellite test creates space station hazard

International Space Station
The International Space Station faced an emergency brought on by a Russian anti-satellite test. (NASA Photo)

A Russian anti-satellite test sparked an orbital-debris emergency aboard the International Space Station today, followed by sharp protests from NASA’s administrator and other U.S. officials.

The incident, which involved the deliberate destruction of an obsolete Russian spy satellite known as Cosmos 1408, is likely to spur renewed debate over military rules of engagement in space and the nature of Russian (and Chinese) anti-satellite maneuvers.

The U.S. Space Command said Russia struck the one-ton satellite with a direct-ascent, anti-satellite missile, breaking it into more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and what’s thought to be hundreds of thousands of smaller bits.

“The debris created by Russia’s DA-ASAT will continue to pose a threat to activities in outer space for years to come, putting satellites and space missions at risk, as well as forcing more collision avoidance maneuvers,” U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, commander of the Space Command, said in a news release. “Space activities underpin our way of life, and this kind of behavior is simply irresponsible.”

The trajectories for the debris cloud and the International Space Station come close to each other every 90 minutes, and that required the space station’s seven crew members to take cover today.

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Starfish Space raises $7M to boost satellite servicing

Otter space tug at work
An artist’s conception shows Starfish’s Otter space tug at work. (Starfish Space Illustration)

Kent, Wash.-based Starfish Space says it’s raised $7 million to boost its drive to develop a space tug capable of moving objects into different orbits — or sending them down through the atmosphere for safe disposal.

The seed funding round was co-led by NFX and MaC Venture Capital, with participation from PSL Ventures, Boost VC, Liquid2 Ventures and Hypothesis.

Starfish Space was founded in 2019 by Austin Link and Trevor Bennett, two veterans of Jeff Bezos’ Kent-based Blue Origin space venture. The company’s senior roboticist, Ian Heidenberger, also came to the venture from Blue Origin.

The centerpiece of Starfish’s business plan is the Otter space tug, a small satellite that would be capable of capturing and moving other objects in orbit. Such a capability could address two of the emerging challenges in the satellite industry: extending the operating life of large, expensive geostationary spacecraft; and disposing of obsolete spacecraft and other space debris.

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After sky show, SpaceX picks up its rocket droppings

COPV tank on carrier
The Falcon 9 pressure tank is loaded up for transport after recovery from a Grant County farm. (Grant County Sheriff’s Office)

The atmospheric re-entry and breakup of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage created a fiery display in the skies above the Pacific Northwest a week ago, but not all of those shooting stars burned up on the way down.

At least one big piece of the rocket — a roughly 5-foot-long composite-overwrapped pressure vessel — fell onto private property in southwest Grant County in Central Washington, the county sheriff’s office reported today in a tweet.

Kyle Foreman, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told GeekWire that the property owner left a message reporting the debris last weekend. Based on the reports about March 25’s meteor show, SpaceX’s rocket re-entry loomed as the likeliest cause for the commotion.

“The sheriff’s office checked it out on Monday, and SpaceX staff came over on Tuesday and retrieved it,” Foreman said.

He was unaware of any other reports of fallen rocket debris — and in its tweet, the sheriff’s office made clear that it considered the case closed. “Media and treasure hunters: we are not disclosing specifics,” it said. “The property owner simply wants to be left alone.”

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Spaceflight and Tethers team up on deorbiting system

Sherpa-FX
An artist’s conception shows Spaceflight’s Sherpa-FX, the first orbital transfer vehicle to debut in the company’s Sherpa-NG (next generation) program. The vehicle is capable of executing multiple deployments, as well as providing independent and detailed deployment telemetry. (Spaceflight Inc. Illustration)

Seattle-based Spaceflight Inc. says it’ll use a notebook-sized deorbiting system developed by another Seattle-area company to deal with the disposal of its Sherpa-FX orbital transfer vehicle.

The NanoSat Terminator Tape Deorbit System, built by Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited, is designed to take advantage of orbital drag on a 230-foot-long strip of conductive tape to hasten the fiery descent of a spacecraft through Earth’s atmosphere. The system has been tested successfully on nanosatellites over the past year, and another experiment is planned for later this year.

Tethers Unlimited’s system provides an affordable path to reducing space debris, which is becoming a problem of greater concern as more small satellites go into orbit. Statistical models suggest that there are nearly a million bits of debris bigger than half an inch (1 centimeter) whizzing in Earth orbit.

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‘Terminator Tape’ will fight orbital debris

Terminator Tape
One version of the Terminator Tape system is designed to be integrated onto a 4-inch-wide CubeSat. A dime is included in the picture for a size comparison. (Tethers Unlimited Photo)

Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited will have its technology for deorbiting space debris put to its most ambitious test next year, during a satellite mission that will be conducted in league with TriSept Corp., Millennium Space Systems and Rocket Lab.

The technology, known as Terminator Tape, involves placing a module on a small satellite that can unwind a stretch of electrically conductive tape when it’s time to dispose of the satellite.

“This tape will significantly increase the aerodynamic cross-section of the satellite, enhancing the drag it experiences due to neutral particles,” Tethers Unlimited says in an online explainer. “In addition, the motion of this tape across the Earth’s magnetic field will induce a voltage along the tape. This voltage will drive a current to flow up the tape, with electrons collected from the conducting ionospheric plasma at the top of the tape and ions collected at the bottom. This current will induce a ‘passive electrodynamic’ drag force on the tape.”

The increased drag should dramatically shorten the timetable for dragging a satellite down to its fiery atmospheric re-entry.

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A way-out plan to turn space junk into treasure

Orbital debris
A computer-generated image represents zones of space debris. The two main debris fields are the ring of objects in geosynchronous Earth orbit and the cloud of objects in low Earth orbit. (NASA Illustration)

What can be done with the thousands of dead satellites orbiting Earth? Some commercial ventures are hatching plans to get rid of them, but one expert has laid out a scheme for turning them into building materials … for the moon.

And the Blue Moon lunar lander being developed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture could play a part in the scheme. “The Blue Moon fits into my plan perfectly,” Keith Volkert, CEO of California-based Satellite Consulting Inc., said last week at Amazon’s re:MARS conference in Las Vegas.

The fact that Volkert presented his satellite salvaging plan at re:MARS doesn’t suggest that Bezos has endorsed the idea. But it does suggest Volkert has put enough thought into his seemingly crazy idea to win a share of the Vegas spotlight.

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VP Mike Pence addresses the space traffic jam

Mike Pence
Vice President Mike Pence addresses the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. (Space Symposium via YouTube)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Trump administration is getting set to sign off on a new set of procedures for managing space traffic and minimizing space junk, Vice President Mike Pence said today.

During an opening address to the 34th Space Symposium here, Pence talked up efforts to boost human spaceflight, set a course for the moon and Mars, and trim back regulations on the space industry.

“Under President Donald Trump, America is leading in space once again,” said Pence, who chairs the White House’s National Space Council.

Pence called on the Senate to confirm Trump’s choice for NASA administrator, Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., whose nomination has been stalled for months. He also announced that Jim Ellis, former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, would head the space council’s Users Advisory Group.

But it was Pence’s comments on a new space traffic management system that drew the most attention.

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Tiangong-1 space lab burns up over the Pacific

Tiangong-1 destruction
An artist’s conception shows the fiery breakup of China’s Tiangong-1 space lab. (AGI Illustration)

China’s Tiangong-1 space lab is no more.

The 8.5-ton spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere at about 5:15 p.m. PT today (00:15 GMT on April 2) over the Pacific Ocean, and any pieces that survived the fiery plunge should have fallen into the central area of the South Pacific, Chinese space officials said.

The U.S. military’s Joint Force Space Component Command issued a similar report, setting the time of re-entry at about 5:16 p.m.

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Chinese space lab heads for a fall this weekend

Tiangong-1 space lab
An artist’s conception shows China’s Tiangong-1 space lab flying over the Gulf of Mexico. (The Aerospace Corp. via YouTube)china

After months of tracking China’s uncontrollable Tiangong-1 space lab, satellite watchers have narrowed down the time frame for its final, fiery plunge through the atmosphere — and it’s this weekend.

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