China begins in-orbit test of what it claims is a “space debris mitigation” satellite
The Space Force has now detected a second object flying next to a recently launched Chinese satellite that China claims will do an in-orbit test of a “space debris mitigation” system.
On Nov. 3 U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) catalogued a new object alongside Shijian-21 with the international designator 2021-094C. The object is noted as a rocket body and more precisely an apogee kick motor (AKM), used in some launches for a satellite to circularize and lower the inclination of its transfer orbit and enter geostationary orbit.
Apogee kick motors usually perform a final maneuver after satellite separation so as to not pose a threat to active satellites through risk of collision. However both Shijian-21 and the SJ-21 AKM are side by side in geostationary orbit.
The close proximity of the two objects strongly suggests Chinese engineers plan to use the satellite in some manner to capture the AKM in order to de-orbit it.
While China is likely testing methods for capturing and removing space debris, using this AKM, it could also be testing military technologies, such the ability to snatch working satellites it does not own from orbit. The lack of transparency can only make everyone suspicious.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Space Force has now detected a second object flying next to a recently launched Chinese satellite that China claims will do an in-orbit test of a “space debris mitigation” system.
On Nov. 3 U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) catalogued a new object alongside Shijian-21 with the international designator 2021-094C. The object is noted as a rocket body and more precisely an apogee kick motor (AKM), used in some launches for a satellite to circularize and lower the inclination of its transfer orbit and enter geostationary orbit.
Apogee kick motors usually perform a final maneuver after satellite separation so as to not pose a threat to active satellites through risk of collision. However both Shijian-21 and the SJ-21 AKM are side by side in geostationary orbit.
The close proximity of the two objects strongly suggests Chinese engineers plan to use the satellite in some manner to capture the AKM in order to de-orbit it.
While China is likely testing methods for capturing and removing space debris, using this AKM, it could also be testing military technologies, such the ability to snatch working satellites it does not own from orbit. The lack of transparency can only make everyone suspicious.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Yes, there are good reasons to doubt their intentions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qixtjMoMUA
Looks like E.S. Blofeld was Elon Musk before there was Elon Musk. But wait a minute, Blofeld was supposedly neutralized in 1971 and Musk was born in 1971…Hmm!
As with pretty much any technology, there are potential dual uses. Perhaps the best way to try and bring such technology out for public scrutiny is for NASA and ESA to get out in front of this issue. Work together, with any willing space agency, to set international standards and set rewards for the private sector to create the technology to de-orbit defunct satellites and other debris. Setting a good example is probably the best thing that could be done to influence China in a better direction.
“Communist Mitigation Launch Mission”
https://youtu.be/S-V6MZlyCqE
2:22
mpthompson wrote:
“Perhaps the best way to try and bring such technology out for public scrutiny is for NASA and ESA to get out in front of this issue. ”
No.
Those are agencies with a strongly academic/scientific/political agenda. US Space Force currently supplies data, but they have other long-term tasks to pay attention to. However, the Commerce Department’s Office of Commercial Spaceflight is placed in exactly the focus of attention for these problems. It should be funded to pay close attention, through a specific section assigned to space debris and the technology designed to mitigate that.
That section may grow into an enforcement arm/garbage detail that also picks up the garbage and drops it into the South Pacific, whenever there’s no longer an obvious commercial entity to get a threatening object out of heavily traveled space traffic orbits. That section may eventually grow into a “Space Guard” that interacts pre-emptively with other nations’ commercial and regulatory groups to make sure no one’s sats “bump” one another.
NASA and ESA have other fish to fry.
Agreed.
Space Force is underfunded. Grover Norquist can bite me.
The USAF has a bloat that puts all but entitlements to shame. Carrier Groupies as well. The immense WWII/Cold War logistical base keeping model needs to die…the troops put on our boarders so they actually ARE defending Americans for the first time since the Revolutionary War.
So the country that drops rocket stages on populated areas and doesn’t even bother to send their heavy lift first stage into a controlled reentry to avoid the possibility of it hitting a major city is grievously concerned with space debris removal. Because, well, uh…. Yup, nothing suspicious here at all.
Jeff-
Ref- Grover Norquist–yepper, he’s a rino, a mole, and a card-carrying progressive. Isn’t he up to his eye-balls with the muslim brotherhood?
PR-
Good stuff.
ref- the communists who control the gulag known as china.
In the Alternate Universe, they’ve been turned into ash, and there were no survivors.
U-2
“Seconds”
https://youtu.be/XSl0W-NsL98
3:10