Russia Spending Billions to Clean Up Space Junk
Aw, thanks Russia!
We've sent a lot of stuff into space over the years, including flies, dogs, mice, monkeys, people, satellites and rovers. No surprise then that there's so much junk floating around up there. What with out of order satellites and random bits of space junk, there is a lot of crap out there doing nothing but orbiting the Earth. Right now, it looks kind of like this:
Considering the years of space exploration the human race has carried out, it really is high time we start cleaning up after ourselves. Luckily for us, Mother Russia is stepping in to do the tidying for us; the country has just announced that it will invest billions to clear 600 satellites out of Earth's orbit.
Russian space corporation Energia plans to develop a special space pod that will grab and deorbit about 600 broken satellites. Once deorbited they'll either burn up in the atmosphere or splash down into the ocean. With an estimated life-span of 15 years, the pod will have a nuclear core and will cost $2 billion to develop and deploy.
The clearing of the satellites will contribute to the removal of the threat space debris poses to the future of space technology and exploration. Russia plans to have the pod in service no later than 2023.
Read more about Russia's plans to clean up space on Fast Company.
Source: Fast Company via SlashGear
*Image via Fast Company
- Empathy Tweets Emotions via Mood Ring
- Graffiti Bar Gives High-Tech Dining Experience
- Organic Photovoltaics Make Efficiency Gains
- Give any Toothbrush the Power of Sonic
- The F-Stop is the Watch for Photo Geeks
- Bank Worker Fired Over Facebook Post
- Toshiba Unveils TVs with Battery Backup
- Apple Bans Android Magazine From App Store
- Leaked U.S. Docs Link Google Attack to China
- Deals for November 30: The Deals Continue On...
- Next WP7 Update May Bring Copy/Paste
- Fanuc Speed Sorter Sifts Through Skittles
- WheeMe 'Bot "Massages" with Spiked Wheels
- Royale Opera Time-Piece Sells for $1 Million
- XM25 Rifle Aimbots its way Past Cover
- Full-scale Replica of the Aliens Pulse Rifle
- Give your (Storage) Space some Time
- Optimus Prime Carved out of Ice
- Tony Hawk's New Skateboard Packs a V-8 Punch
Mother Russia
um... thank you russia?
As human we love creating new toys but are terrible at cleaning up.
At least someone has made a start...... good move and thought Matushka....
Hah, I'm shocked Russia is the first one to jump on this HUGE problem we have created for ourselves. Glad to see them step up too.
Sputnik 2020?
Pretty embarrassing for the U.S. to have other countries make more of an effort to clear the space junk considering a vast uneven amount of satellites are ours. Good job Russia, unless Mother Russia has other plans lol.
WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!
Hold on here. The pod will grab the space junks and toss it into the ocean...? You mean leaving it in the ocean with a bunch of unknown lifeforms is better than leaving it in orbit not really doing anything? How about we grab stuff we know will burn in the atmosphere then save the big stuff for hurling at other planets or the sun instead of giving it a chance to accidentally crash into a city.
will it clean also perfectly functioning US military spy satellites? same routine: ocean or burning in the atmosphere?
Good job Russia, unless Mother Russia has other plans lol.
They probably do...
How about we grab stuff we know will burn in the atmosphere then save the big stuff for hurling at other planets or the sun instead of giving it a chance to accidentally crash into a city.
Yes, accidentally, that's exactly what they want you to think.
will it clean also perfectly functioning US military spy satellites? same routine: ocean or burning in the atmosphere?
Looks like some guys here are catching on.
It's a trick! It's the drone is gonna use as cannon balls to throw at other nations! xD
Kidding xD I always thought those space debris can be used as some atmospheric protection LOL
Go Russia! Thanks for the clean up. 2 bill a pop.. damn... they must have other plans other than just cleaning.,.
preparing a clean path for Nukes launch?
lol
good ol "mom" always cleaning up after us kids
id dump it all on the moon tho
Hmm nuclear powered satellites flying around sounds pretty scary to me. Assuming they don't have ulterior motives what happens if it has an accident taking off and what happens when it becomes space junk - crash a nuclear powered satellite back to earth?
The only thing that worried me is the nuclear powered part. The US didn't go forth with the Orion project because of the political pressure against putting anything nuclear over the country or up into space. What would happen should there be a "problem"?
I'm really sure Russia is going to spend billions cleaning up garbage with a nuclear powered pod for the benefit of man kind.
I'm sure this has more to do with the missile shield the U.S is putting up than anything else,it could also have something to do with the largest U.S spy satellite the government put into space last week.
historically Russia has always done nice things ..... wait what?
cant this pod also grab working (spy) satellites and throw them in the sea too?
"Russia plans to have the pod in service no later than 2023."
inb4 10 years later... Metro 2033
What about dog poop in Moscow?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stray_dogs_in_Moscow
What about dog poop in Moscow?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stray_dogs_in_Moscow
The satellite will also take care of that, up from the sky
WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!Hold on here. The pod will grab the space junks and toss it into the ocean...? You mean leaving it in the ocean with a bunch of unknown lifeforms is better than leaving it in orbit not really doing anything? How about we grab stuff we know will burn in the atmosphere then save the big stuff for hurling at other planets or the sun instead of giving it a chance to accidentally crash into a city.
Typical narrow cited, how do you get it to the ocean, by the atmosphere, ie burning it up on the way here, the s**t came from earth its coming back, what life form do you know of that could survive re-entry, ohy yeah bacteria that created life on earth NOTHING ELSE, they can pin point where something wilol land they wont land it in a city FFS, hurling it at the sun what a stupid idea, its would liqufy first and then stay a liquid, it would not burn up, you think they have not already thought of that, and throwing it to another planet thats plain stupid!
Hats off to Russia tho I wonder what they're really putting up there or clearing a space for......meh tbh if this is what it says on the tin then every country should be forced to chip in to this project
Does this mean that this Pod which can take down old satellites be also used to take down good ones as well
???
just lob it all into the Sun?
One hopes it doesn't have a missile system built onto it....
How about recycling those junk. I bet it would pay off. There’s a lot of precious metals on that ‘space junk’.
Typical Russian BS.
Lots of press releases - and NOTHING will be done.
You can grab, sabotage or destroy fully functioning satellites too on the way during garbage collection.
Let say, US satellites?
Building a Satellite that can shoot other satellites.
U jelly?