At GEO, it's much easier to tow a dead satellite up to graveyard orbit then it is to tow it down to deorbit.
The different in delta-V is huge. It's why the same rocket can launch much more to LEO than to GTO.
China's Space Program News Thread
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The different in delta-V is huge. It's why the same rocket can launch much more to LEO than to GTO.
that means space junks can never really be cleaned up in the truest sense of the word, thank you.
broadsword
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There were reports of using space junk as fuel for spacecraft. Can the more knowledgeable people here shed light on it?
Never is too strong. objects on geosynchronized orbits are stiill susceptible to drag from earth‘s extended atmosphere, so their orbits will decay But it will take 10s of millions of years for satellite sized object to decay from geosynchronized orbits.
From my understanding, in GEO atmosphere is negligible.
In LEO at a 300 km the pressure is calculated ~1E-12 torr, which is better than any artificial vacuum at sea level. Empirically this is true as well. GEO is 30000 km.
I believe orbital mechanics beyond GEO are determined more by perturbative gravitational forces from other solar system objects, radiation pressure, solar wind pressure, etc. than anything to do with the atmosphere.
We can't remove the junk spacecrafts from the orbit because the kinetic energy of the satelites is expensive.
If nuclear power and electromagnetic propulsion technology are appliable and popularized, junk sweepers like SJ21 could push down the junks back to earth then accelarate and redeploy itself.
100-kW Hall-effect thrusters.
100KW?! not 10 or 1KW???
That's a beast of an ion thruster.
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