DARPA’s project to harvest parts from abandoned geosynchronous satellites.
Salvage in space: DARPA’s project to harvest parts from abandoned geosynchronous satellites.
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
Salvage in space: DARPA’s project to harvest parts from abandoned geosynchronous satellites.
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
I applaud this effort, but I seem to recall a time when we could salvage entire satellites from orbit.
NEVER from anything beyond Low Earth Orbit.
Orbital dynamics is the death of many a good idea. Anyone have any insights on fuel requirements and deltaV changes that would help or hinder this from happening?
By the time this gets started they would have been better off just making satellites modular.
Put together like LEGO’s. Got a bad solar panel? Just replace the thing.
And everything, and I mean EVERYTHING would have to be modular. As soon as you have any part other than the frame that is not replaceable you mine as well just make the whole thing custom. Because as, Murphy’s law will always take effect, that one custom part will be the one to crap out first.
Now that would require a repair robot be in the same orbit as the satellite and have the spare part available.
Granted you would have to be patient enough to wait for the robot to get to the satellite and that could take a year using a low low fuel orbit change but it could be done.
Everything would have to preplanned and preplaced into orbit. Otherwise its just a waste of a launch.