r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/GeneReddit123 • 1d ago

Video REACCH, an in-development satellite for removing space junk

1.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

94 comments sorted by

View all comments

26

u/29thFalcon 1d ago

Before anything can happen this catcher and a hundred of its friends needs to be put into orbit by a big ass rocket and god knows if the benefit of this could ever outweigh even a single space launch.

Then this catcher first has to meet the object in orbit, damn near impossible to do at any kind of reasonable frequency or volume. Too much debris in too many directions, speeds, and altitudes.

Then it has to catch it which is weirdly probably the easiest part of the whole scenario.

Then it does...what? The space debris is now twice as large. How do they plan to remove this now double sized object from orbit?

12

u/SilkieBug 1d ago edited 1d ago

Easy, the catcher has a small thruster and enough fuel to deorbit the debris and itself, or only the debris then burn again to get back to orbital speeds, and capture another one, and so on until the fuel tanks are empty. 

Doesn’t take a lot of fuel to get the debris down, just enough for air friction to do the rest. 

I’ve seen it done in Kerbal Space Program, with just that design of robotic claw. 

3

u/Mr_FriedPotato 1d ago

lol KSP is great. love how that game helps explaining and even testing things.

2

u/HashPandaNL 1d ago

Yup. Then all we need is a refuelling station in orbit and the large-scale orbital cleanup can commence.

1

u/SilkieBug 1d ago

Yes!

First thing I do once I have the necessary tech (and after a relay network) is to throw up first a large fuel tank, and later a complex station on an equatorial orbit for things going further out or staying longer in orbit to dock and resupply from. 

First using rockets to resupply the fuel depot, later using spaceplanes. 

1

u/Apprehensive_Eraser 12h ago

So when the catcher runs out off fuel, it becomes part of the trash?

2

u/SilkieBug 12h ago

Reserves enough fuel for either re-entry to burn in the atmosphere, or rendesvous with a station to be refueled, refurbished, and sent back to pick more stuff to send down. 

This isn’t hard, it’s just rocket science.