Not content with simply polluting our planet, humankind is also doing a pretty good (or, really, bad) job of polluting space as well. There are thousands of pieces of orbital detritus, many of them old satellites or discarded rocket stages, whizzing around Earth at this moment. These can pose a number of problems, not least if they collide with a functioning satellite or a spacecraft.
Previously Digital Trends has covered cleanup concepts like the European Space Agency’s giant space claw project and a gecko-inspired space janitor created by NASA.
Now Japan’s Kyoto University and a Japanese company, Sumitomo Forestry, have come up with an innovative new idea that could complement these more environmentally friendly initiatives. Their answer? Wooden satellites that can burn up in the atmosphere when no longer required, avoiding leaving any harmful substances behind by doing so. The approach would also mean no risk of debris raining back down to Earth.
“We are very concerned with the fact that all the satellites which re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years,” Takao Doi, a professor at Kyoto University, and a Japanese astronaut who has visited the International Space Station, told the BBC.
The plan calls for the launch of a wooden satellite — a world-first — by 2023. Partner company Sumitomo Forestry has reportedly already begun researching the use of wood materials in space. Part of this will involve exploring how different types of wood cope with harsh environments, analogous to space, here on Earth. While it has not revealed the wood it plans on using, this will need to be one that is resistant to both extreme temperature changes and sunlight.
After this initial materials science research is done, the researchers will then build an engineering model of the satellite, followed by a flight model prior to the 2023 planned launch.
Whether this unique concept takes off (both literally and figuratively) remains to be seen. However, with some 6,000 satellites currently orbiting the Earth — with around 60% of them defunct — this is a problem that needs to be addressed. Projects like Elon Musk’s ambitious Starlink satellite network will only add to the number of orbiting objects.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.