Mt Stromlo - $150 million Funding to track space junk

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

In a bold and commercially savvy move, ANU and EOS Systems and Mt Stromlo observatory (all based near Canberra) have attracted 150 million dollars of funding to research methods of tracking, and destroying, small pieces of space junk that threaten to turn low Earth Orbit into an environment that is too hazardous for satellites.

This is a brilliant move, which builds on the towering strengths of Australian optical astronomers in UV/optical/NIR astrophysics and in building state-of-the art electro-optical instrumentation.

Radio astronomy has traditionally been supported in Australia at a high funding level, probably because our radio astronomers know how to build commercially useful technology.
So it is good to see that our optical astronomers are making a bold move into the area of "science that is immediately useful in a practical sense".

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/anu-ncf030614.php

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/mount-stromlo-observatory-near-canberra-to-get-150m-centre-to-combat-space-junk/story-fn5fsgyc-1226848314008

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

for some reason the news.com link fails when you click on it, however it will work if the URL is reloaded.

The eurekalert link also seems to fail. Try
http://www.eurekalert.org/econnews.php
and find a press release for 6th March 2014

[gary]

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

for some reason the news.com link fails when you click on it, however it will work if the URL is reloaded.

The eurekalert link also seems to fail. Try
http://www.eurekalert.org/econnews.php
and find a press release for 6th March 2014

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the links.

They are broken because you have inadvertently prepended them with additional
http tokens.

The corrected links should be -
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sc...-1226848314008
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-ncf030614.php

Originally Posted by CRC for Space Environment Management Dr Ben Greene CEO

"Our initial aim is to reduce the rate of debris proliferation due to new collisions, and then to remove debris by using ground-based lasers. The preliminary research has already been performed by the individual CRC participants over the past decade, and we will now work together in the CRC to drive the program forward," Dr Greene said.

See also this March 2011 article http://www.technologyreview.com/view...ng-space-junk/ particularly
taking note of the corrections at the bottom -

Originally Posted by NASA Public Affairs Office

2) “Focused onto a piece of junk for an hour or two every day, they calculate that a 5 KW laser could do the trick”
The “trick” is to only displace the object by a tiny amount, thereby preventing a collision. This laser’s effect would be far too weak to rapidly affect the decay of the object’s orbit. To actually de-orbit a debris object with a laser requires forces about 1,000 times more powerful. To “ultimately de-orbit it entirely” would take about the same amount of time as if we had not illuminated it - this may well take decades, depending on the object.

Best Regards

Gary

[pdalek (Patrick)]

The low effectiveness noted by Gary refers to a pure photon pressure system. See
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.1690v3.pdf
for more info.

Laser ablation systems induce a plasma on the target surface. This acts like a rocket motor and greatly increases efficiency. See
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.3835.pdf
for a simple description, or
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.3659v1.pdf
for a more complete study.

Lockheed Martin has a nice new laser for shooting things:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com.au/us/...ber-laser.html

EOS make a variety of tracking and laser director telescopes.
http://www.eostech.com/s_systems.html

[mr bruess]

too much junck in atmosphere and too much in space

[pdalek (Patrick)]

Many people were irate over the Chinese satellite destruction test in 2007.
Who remembers Project Needles?