For a long time I have been wondering whether or not missile defense technology and techniques could be used in spaceflight to defend the ISS and perhaps satellites from the micrometeriod and debris threat. Of course it is a challenge. Such pieces of debris could come in at 20 km/s.Personally I think it would be possible for small threat to be taken out with a fast acting laser. Larger threats could be detected at a greater distance, so giving a gun or missile system time to react.Just a few ideas, although I do not know how practical they are from a technical and political perspective. Such active defense would likely be considered by some to be ASAT. Of course their short range would make them useful for such a purpose only at very short range.
Quote from: DarkenedOne on 03/22/2011 10:42 pmFor a long time I have been wondering whether or not missile defense technology and techniques could be used in spaceflight to defend the ISS and perhaps satellites from the micrometeriod and debris threat. Of course it is a challenge. Such pieces of debris could come in at 20 km/s.Personally I think it would be possible for small threat to be taken out with a fast acting laser. Larger threats could be detected at a greater distance, so giving a gun or missile system time to react.Just a few ideas, although I do not know how practical they are from a technical and political perspective. Such active defense would likely be considered by some to be ASAT. Of course their short range would make them useful for such a purpose only at very short range. Doing any of this against orbital debris in space will only make the debris population increase. You have to find a way to de-orbit this stuff.
Quote from: LegendCJS on 03/22/2011 10:52 pmQuote from: DarkenedOne on 03/22/2011 10:42 pmFor a long time I have been wondering whether or not missile defense technology and techniques could be used in spaceflight to defend the ISS and perhaps satellites from the micrometeriod and debris threat. Of course it is a challenge. Such pieces of debris could come in at 20 km/s.Personally I think it would be possible for small threat to be taken out with a fast acting laser. Larger threats could be detected at a greater distance, so giving a gun or missile system time to react.Just a few ideas, although I do not know how practical they are from a technical and political perspective. Such active defense would likely be considered by some to be ASAT. Of course their short range would make them useful for such a purpose only at very short range. Doing any of this against orbital debris in space will only make the debris population increase. You have to find a way to de-orbit this stuff.Not necessarily. Lasers could be used as I said to vaporize smaller pieces.
Quote from: DarkenedOne on 03/23/2011 12:37 pmQuote from: LegendCJS on 03/22/2011 10:52 pmQuote from: DarkenedOne on 03/22/2011 10:42 pmFor a long time I have been wondering whether or not missile defense technology and techniques could be used in spaceflight to defend the ISS and perhaps satellites from the micrometeriod and debris threat. Of course it is a challenge. Such pieces of debris could come in at 20 km/s.Personally I think it would be possible for small threat to be taken out with a fast acting laser. Larger threats could be detected at a greater distance, so giving a gun or missile system time to react.Just a few ideas, although I do not know how practical they are from a technical and political perspective. Such active defense would likely be considered by some to be ASAT. Of course their short range would make them useful for such a purpose only at very short range. Doing any of this against orbital debris in space will only make the debris population increase. You have to find a way to de-orbit this stuff.Not necessarily. Lasers could be used as I said to vaporize smaller pieces.Lasers may be able to vaporize very small specks of stuff that is painted black or otherwise absorbing to the wavelength used, but stuff of the size that can be completely turned to gas by any laser you would bother putting in space can't be tracked by radar with sufficient accuracy to target it. And for the same sized objects you could just let the micrometeorite and debris shields that will always be present on the ISS or future stations handle that small stuff. The shielding will have to be there regardless as a backup, because radar can't spot this small stuff at all or in time (depending on the size and speed).If the debris is shiny or reflective to the wavelength used, the laser won't be able to do squat. If the item is large enough to be tracked by radar for long enough to target a laser on it, the laser won't be able to turn it all into gas. It would just sputter off layers of material where it strikes making more paint fleck type debris.If you could target the debris repeatedly on many passes in a controlled way to make the sputtering material impart a thrust to the debris such that the object was de-orbited you might have something. But then you have to make the trade-off between the cost of re-positioning fuel for the ISS vs the cost of the laser and supplying its firing fuel (the "star-wars" rejected all laser types except chemical lasers- probably on the basis of their being compact and maneuverable; no need for acres of solar panels). And each 'hit' will nudge the debris so lightly that you can't rely on this kind of system to protect your space station from a suddenly detected threat - so you still have to move the station out of the way.Now you get into the realm of the studies that have already been conducted on ground lasers being used to remove orbital debris. Here is one reference: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat20.pdf
1. It probably would not be a good idea to use radar to track space debris anyway.
Quote from: DarkenedOne on 03/26/2011 05:08 pm1. It probably would not be a good idea to use radar to track space debris anyway.That would come as news to the people who use radar for this purpose every day.