Confronting Space Debris

Confronting Space Debris PDF Author: Dave Baiocchi
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833051903
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
To guide future responses to the space debris problem, examines strategies for nine comparable problems: acid rain, U.S. commercial airline security, asbestos, chlorofluorocarbons, hazardous waste, oil spills, radon, spam, and U.S. border control.

Confronting Space Debris

Confronting Space Debris PDF Author: Dave Baiocchi
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833051016
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

Book Description
Orbital space debris represents a growing threat to the operation of man-made systems in space. With the goal of guiding future mitigation or remediation efforts, this monograph examines nine comparable problems that share similarities with orbital debris: acid rain, U.S. commercial airline security, asbestos, chlorofluorocarbons, hazardous waste, oil spills, radon, email spam, and U.S. border control.

Guidance, Control and Docking for CubeSat-based Active Debris Removal

Guidance, Control and Docking for CubeSat-based Active Debris Removal PDF Author: Mohamed Khalil Ben-Larbi
Publisher: Cuvillier Verlag
ISBN: 3736968485
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Book Description
While a paradigm shift in space industry has already started involving “mass production” of higher standardized, large distributed systems such as constellations, there are no effective solutions existing for the “mass removal” of satellites. Many indicators point to a further increase in the space traffic in Earth orbit in the near future, which could imply new dynamics in the evolution of the space debris environment. Even in case of diligent compliance with the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) mitigation guidelines, the growth in space traffic complicates its management and drastically increases the probability of accidents and system failures. NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler proposed a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade that renders space unusable for many generations. Therefore, a reliable and affordable capability of removing or servicing non-functional objects is essential to guarantee sustainable access to Earth orbit. Recently, the CubeSat design standard introduced a new class of cost-efficient small spacecraft and thereby offers a potential solution to the active debris removal (ADR) problem. The development of a novel “CubeSat-compatible” ADR technology has significant advantages such as the use of commercial off-the-shelf parts, reduced launch cost, and reduced design efforts. This thesis presents –in the frame of an ADR mission– an approach to advanced rendezvous and docking with non-cooperative targets via CubeSat. It covers the design process of simulation systems used for verification purposes, the ideation and implementation of novel guidance, control, and docking techniques, as well as their verification and evaluation. The outcome of this research is a series of validated software tools, processes, technical devices, and algorithms for automated approach and docking, that have been tested in simulation and with prototype hardware.

Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft

Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309219779
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
Derelict satellites, equipment and other debris orbiting Earth (aka space junk) have been accumulating for many decades and could damage or even possibly destroy satellites and human spacecraft if they collide. During the past 50 years, various National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) communities have contributed significantly to maturing meteoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) programs to their current state. Satellites have been redesigned to protect critical components from MMOD damage by moving critical components from exterior surfaces to deep inside a satellite's structure. Orbits are monitored and altered to minimize the risk of collision with tracked orbital debris. MMOD shielding added to the International Space Station (ISS) protects critical components and astronauts from potentially catastrophic damage that might result from smaller, untracked debris and meteoroid impacts. Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft: An Assessment of NASA's Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Program examines NASA's efforts to understand the meteoroid and orbital debris environment, identifies what NASA is and is not doing to mitigate the risks posed by this threat, and makes recommendations as to how they can improve their programs. While the report identified many positive aspects of NASA's MMOD programs and efforts including responsible use of resources, it recommends that the agency develop a formal strategic plan that provides the basis for prioritizing the allocation of funds and effort over various MMOD program needs. Other necessary steps include improvements in long-term modeling, better measurements, more regular updates of the debris environmental models, and other actions to better characterize the long-term evolution of the debris environment.

Dark Skies

Dark Skies PDF Author: Daniel Deudney
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019090335X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
Space is again in the headlines. E-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are planning to colonize Mars. President Trump wants a "Space Force" to achieve "space dominance" with expensive high-tech weapons. The space and nuclear arms control regimes are threadbare and disintegrating. Would-be asteroid collision diverters, space solar energy collectors, asteroid miners, and space geo-engineers insistently promote their Earth-changing mega-projects. Given our many looming planetary catastrophes (from extreme climate change to runaway artificial superintelligence), looking beyond the earth for solutions might seem like a sound strategy for humanity. And indeed, bolstered by a global network of fervent space advocates-and seemingly rendered plausible, even inevitable, by oceans of science fiction and the wizardly of modern cinema-space beckons as a fully hopeful path for human survival and flourishing, a positive future in increasingly dark times. But despite even basic questions of feasibility, will these many space ventures really have desirable effects, as their advocates insist? In the first book to critically assess the major consequences of space activities from their origins in the 1940s to the present and beyond, Daniel Deudney argues in Dark Skies that the major result of the "Space Age" has been to increase the likelihood of global nuclear war, a fact conveniently obscured by the failure of recognize that nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are inherently space weapons. The most important practical finding of Space Age science, also rarely emphasized, is the discovery that we live on Oasis Earth, tiny and fragile, and teeming with astounding life, but surrounded by an utterly desolate and inhospitable wilderness stretching at least many trillions of miles in all directions. As he stresses, our focus must be on Earth and nowhere else. Looking to the future, Deudney provides compelling reasons why space colonization will produce new threats to human survival and not alleviate the existing ones. That is why, he argues, we should fully relinquish the quest. Mind-bending and profound, Dark Skies challenges virtually all received wisdom about the final frontier.

Standing Up Space Force

Standing Up Space Force PDF Author: Forrest L. Marion
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682472434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
Although the United States won the race to the moon, the Soviets were far more active in space than Americans during the decade that followed. By the 1980s, some space experts feared the United States was in danger of being surpassed in space, including dual-use systems that might be employed offensively in a military confrontation. A few experts, looking ahead, recommended a space force within roughly two decades. Standing up Space Force is organized chronologically by presidential administration, beginning in the middle of the Clinton years and progressing through the Trump administration. During the Clinton and George W. Bush years, the move to national security space was incremental. The Obama presidency witnessed the rise of NewSpace entrepreneurs whose impressive space activities facilitated their initial partnering with U.S. government National Security Space (NSS) missions helping the United States keep pace with China and Russia. During the Trump administration, all necessary elements finally came together – most significantly, presidential-congressional leadership and bipartisan support – to eventually produce the fiscal 2020 national defense authorization act (NDAA). Because the NDAA authorized and provided for the Space Force, when the President signed the defense bill on 20 December 2019, at the same moment he officially established the nation’s sixth armed service.

Space Security and Legal Aspects of Active Debris Removal

Space Security and Legal Aspects of Active Debris Removal PDF Author: Annette Froehlich
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319903381
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
The book analyzes the various legal and political concepts to resolve the problem of the existing space debris in outer space and which measures have been taken to avoid space debris or to reduce potential space debris in the course of future space missions. From a scientific and technical point of view various studies are ongoing to analyze the feasibility of active debris removal. Nevertheless it has to be highlighted that outer space is an international area where various actors with different legal and political concepts are operating, a situation that leads to different approaches concerning such activities.

Confronting China

Confronting China PDF Author: James H. Anderson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
Informed by senior policymakers with extensive expertise in defense, this book provides a comprehensive regional and functional perspective on US policy toward the People's Republic of China. Confronting China addresses the central security questions of our generation: How best can the United States deter Chinese aggression and win the peace? China's pursuit of global hegemony reflects a patient yet determined effort to reshape the international order in its favor. Deterring Chinese aggression and winning the peace necessitates an integrated approach that draws upon all instruments of US national power. Drawing on the insightful analysis of more than a dozen senior national security practitioners, chapters discuss the China challenge from multiple perspectives. Contributors examine the different dimensions of China's growing power and assess how well they advance the Chinese Communist Party's political ambitions and what must be done to counter them. Drawing upon each writer's particular areas of expertise, chapter authors provide concrete, strategy-based, and resource-informed policy recommendations. In the concluding chapter, the editors review common threads and key insights from the preceding chapters, placing them in a larger strategic context.

Commercial Space Tourism

Commercial Space Tourism PDF Author: Dirk Gibson
Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
ISBN: 1608052397
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
"The general themes of this analysis of the commercial space tourism industry include three main topics; 1) Benefits of commercial space tourism to numerous stakeholders, 2) The viability of commercial space tourism 3) existing public relations solutions f"

Cyber War and Peace

Cyber War and Peace PDF Author: Scott J. Shackelford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108427731
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 521

Book Description
The frontiers are the future of humanity. Peacefully and sustainably managing them is critical to both security and prosperity in the twenty-first century.