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alaskafish t1_j51bpnk wrote

Reply to comment by PandaEven3982 in ClearSpace raises $29 million ahead of first debris removal mission by sillychillly

Why not just… deorbit it? They’re not particularly resistant to atmospheric heating

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PandaEven3982 t1_j51czyv wrote

That's one answer, especially if the final usage is downwell. If it's for orbital or luna construction, you never deorbit to Terra. You thinking parachute/water? I'd rather keep in orbit and start building a space elevator. :-) or a polar shield/mirror :-)

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binormal t1_j51el6d wrote

This mission is just about de-orbiting debris, not trying to capture materials for reuse...

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PandaEven3982 t1_j51h4vd wrote

It's about garbage collection. You seem to be keen to deorbit what they collect. Okay. How many metric tonnes of garbage are we collecting? Is there an estimate?

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binormal t1_j51ntwn wrote

What? From the article:

>This mission will see the ClearSpace use a spacecraft with four articulated arms to de-orbit part of a Vega rocket from low Earth orbit (LEO).

Assuming they're deorbiting the third stage, which has a dry mass of 1315 kg, they would be collecting about 1.315 metric tonnes of garbage.

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PandaEven3982 t1_j51p9h4 wrote

Better hope that parachute works. Might make a good splash at terminal velocity. Keep it in orbit. Smelt when we build the infrastructure.

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