Prime Movers Lab Webinar Recap: Orbital Debris

Eliminating the Threat to Ensure a Safe and Secure Space Economy

Last week, Liz Stein and I sat down with a panel of experts to understand the orbital debris threat. Here, we note some key takeaways. You can watch the entire webinar on our YouTube channel to learn much more and see visuals that explain concepts like the level of congestion of the different orbital highways and how we can construct 3D models of orbital debris from ground observations!

Orbital Debris: Eliminating the threat to ensure a safe and secure space economy by Prime Movers Lab

Key Takeaways

• What type of orbital debris should we fear most? Orbital debris can be large or tiny. Both are dangerous. We need to treat this as an “and” problem to target both the top 50 list of big ones and the millions of bits.
• A game of chicken! Many sources track debris, from the Department of Defense to start-ups, and those using publicly available data to those using their own data. There’s no one cohesive way for operators to ingest that data, decide how (or if) they want to respond to a potential collision, and then connect with the other object, whether that is a satellite in operation, or whether it is an uncontrolled piece of junk. There is a lack of overall traffic management globally and there is no “rule” for who moves first at an approaching conjunction. We note that Slingshot Aerospace just released a platform for direct communication between satellite operators.
• We don’t have good enough data to make good decisions. Based on their own data, people have disagreements about whether objects may collide. Data that an operator has may be different from another operator, given different sensors have different measurement uncertainty. It is important to aggregate these opinions about collisions because nobody has the truth sensor. Aggregated data that are open to everyone prevent any single source of information from being able to uniquely bias or prejudice one’s opinion about what happens in space. We discussed the new start-up Privateer and its “Google Maps for space”, as well as AstriaGraph, a crowdsourcing, participatory sensing network. These data are good for knowing where other objects are, determine less congested areas to deploy an asset, and discover the more congested areas to clean up. (Note to our space debris removal companies!) Want to help? We need a US Government point of contact to make a crowdsourcing database through CitizenScience.gov!
• Remediation of existing debris poses many challenges. The debris may have no grappling feature or (worse!) is uncharacterized (we don’t know what it is or looks like). Further, the debris is uncontrollable and may be tumbling. Tugs to push debris into the atmosphere to burn up or move debris into high “graveyard orbits” will need to spend propellant and time to inspect and then possibly match the tumbling of a craft before being able to dock. (Note — that is, dock to an item that wasn’t designed for docking in the first place!)
• Tracking is not enough — we need classification. Tracking assumes spherical objects, which is insufficient in informing the approach to remove the debris. A current method is to use a craft for up-close inspection of the debris and then launch a second craft equipped for the specific debris removal mission. Over time this is not economically feasible. A trait-based classification scheme of all these anthropogenic space objects would characterize the market such that debris removal companies can more efficiently target customers.
• We need to establish sustainability metrics to drive monetary value of removing debris. An example may be orbital carrying capacity. We could establish a space traffic footprint similar to a carbon footprint. One could get a given amount of money for providing a given amount of capacity back to the orbit.
• Clean up your FOD! Space debris is turning into a tragedy of the commons. But there could be a change in the air (…or space) with the arrival of Mega Constellations that may be incentivized to maintain their own clean environment. This in turn lets them run their crafts to the end of their design life, getting more ROI.
• Regulation can help drive demand for orbital debris remediation and mitigation, but we must do that in a way that doesn’t limit innovation. Our goal should be the sustainability of the space environment — and not be over-prescriptive in how. Carefully written, smart policy will allow a variety of possible paths (e.g. don’t require assets to have propulsion to deorbit but instead require removal of an asset if uncontrollable).
• We can protect ourselves now — but will we? There is no technology that creates “the tipping point.” We have the capability; we are there. The real tipping point is in our behavior, acting with sustainability in mind. Including not only smart regulations but maybe things like standard interfaces that allow for mining of components and materials in the graveyard orbits, aka spaceborne “landfills”. We should be purposefully planning for reuse, recycle or repurpose.

A closing plea from Moriba Jah: Become active in space environmentalism and join EyesOnTheSky.org!

Thank you to our Panel

Another huge heartfelt thank you to our panelists:

• Dr. Moriba Jah Associate Professor | The University of Texas at Austin | Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department | Mrs. Pearlie Dashiell Henderson Centennial Fellowship in Engineering
• Austin Link Co-founder | Starfish Space
• Carolyn Belle Director of Advanced Systems | Astroscale U.S.

Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.

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