[HN Gopher] Myanmar's satellite held by Japan on space station d...
___________________________________________________________________
Myanmar's satellite held by Japan on space station due to spying
concern
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 235 points
Date : 2021-03-12 18:15 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| 627467 wrote:
| As interesting as this situation is it also looks
| inconsequential. No one from burmese side has voiced anything
| (yet). Considering the political situation on the ground and how
| japan can't contact the burmese liaison it seems like this is
| just an (expensive) limbo situation.
| aritmo wrote:
| It looks like it is more about causing pain to Myanmar than
| actual spying concerns.
|
| Xiaomi, the Chinese consumer electronics company, which
| definitely does only consumer products, is restricted from buying
| microchips. The excuse was an award that was granted by the CCP
| to the chairman of Xiaomi, a type of award that is given away to
| 100 people EVERY year.
| trasz wrote:
| Same thing as with Huawei - when USA can't compete
| technologically, they start competing in... other ways.
| lmilcin wrote:
| There is, almost by definition, no way to have business in
| China without cooperating with government. The award is
| inconsequential.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Every American consumer buys multiple products manufactured
| in China every week of her life. If this is the standard,
| we'll all be suspect. Perhaps that's the point...
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| Cause Myanmar Pain?--That is not a reasonable take imo. It is a
| joint project with Japanese Universities involved. The Myanmar
| coup is very real, and it is prudent to review these things
| before making decisions anyway. After your unreasonable take,
| you segue to an unrelated China point; it feels shoehorned in.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The US government has designated Xiaomi as affiliated with the
| Chinese military. I know full well that the situation is
| complicated and there are multiple things going on. However
| it's got to be a hair splitting exercise in a totalitarian
| state, as keeping onside with your overlords requires a degree
| of cooperation.
|
| http://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/02/01/xiaomi-sues-us-to-overtur...
| aritmo wrote:
| Xiaomi is very competitive in the consumer electronics and in
| mobile phones. They are top in sales for mobile phones in
| many countries. There is an economic war with China that
| Trump started, and Biden continues.
|
| The ban on Xiaomi is more of an attack as part of the
| economic war. The supposedly military ties due to a silly
| award were definitely shoehorned into this.
| liquidify wrote:
| I'm curious about laws in this case. Is there 'jurisdiction' in
| space? Or is it just whoever is there can decide what they want
| to do.
| slim wrote:
| there are no juridictions outside (most) lands. these kind of
| issues are generally setteled by international treaties if
| possible, or else arbitration courts
| thaeli wrote:
| The legal framework for space is primarily laid out in the 1967
| Outer Space Treaty:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
|
| Article VI is most relevant to your question; here's a law
| review article summarizing some of the issues:
| https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
| mjevans wrote:
| I am not a lawyer; but the saying is something like...
| "possession is nine tenths of the law". This is much easier
| right now since currently JAXA possesses the un-deployed
| satellite.
| vmception wrote:
| I checked the article to reach that conclusion too, I was
| actually hoping it was more like space piracy where they
| captured the satellite and took it onboard. that would have
| been really fascinating!
| Rapzid wrote:
| Myanmar: That's not your satellite.
|
| Japan: That's not your government.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's a diplomatic situation. The countries will have to
| negotiate the use of the equipment. I can completely understand
| the Japanese University not wanting the equipment to be used to
| further a genocide.
| dylan604 wrote:
| What if they go ahead an launch it, but accidently
| miscalculate the orbit so it encounters a premature re-entry?
| samus wrote:
| Everybody would know what they did. They could just as well
| toss it out right now. People are not stupid.
| dylan604 wrote:
| We spent moeny to send a lawn dart to Mars because
| feet/meters were confused by some very smart people with
| lots and lots of oversight. Mistakes happen. Some are
| more expensive to learn and more embarassing than others.
| Malice is not required.
| 99_00 wrote:
| The genocide started in 2017. The Junta sized power in 2021.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Yup, and do you think that the persecution has stopped? The
| genocide which started in 2017 began with the military.
| That military has just overthrown their government (which
| itself denied the genocide).
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
| 99_00 wrote:
| >do you think that the persecution has stopped?
|
| No I don't. What's your point?
|
| If aiding genocide was a concern Japan would have stopped
| development of the satellite at any point during the last
| 5 years.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Which is the government that committed the genocide? The one that
| sized power or the one that was thrown out, or some other one?
| gostsamo wrote:
| It is complicated. Long decades Myanmar was a military
| dictatorship. A few years back the dictatorship allowed
| democratic elections under the condition that it will conserve
| key positions in the government and there was this brief period
| when the country was semi-democratic. The military part of the
| government initiated the genocide, but the democratic part was
| accused for not opposing in any visible way.
|
| After the last elections, the military were supposed to loose
| some more of their positions and hence the coup.
| vmception wrote:
| and from my understanding, the military's unilateral action
| is also in line with their constitution, at least according
| to the military.
|
| so where does that leave us to form an opinion and activism
| about it? just because we have a democracy-boner doesn't mean
| we can ignore a country's constitution, even if it is flawed,
| does it?
|
| and if our democracy fervor is really so strong for us to
| actually do something about it, then its hypocritical because
| we don't do anything meaningful about it in country's that
| are more relevant, and it makes us picking on the little
| country.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I think there could at least be some geopolitical
| reprecussions.
|
| The US is so willing to proscribe various Iranian
| government officials as terrorists and to sanction Iran so
| far as to deny them medicine and food from other countries,
| and they have not done anything close to resembling what
| Myanmar has done (genocide).
|
| Democracy doesn't have to be the answer but there should be
| pressure on the state of Myanmar to change in case of
| genocide. We don't have to go forcing other countries to
| accept our values (democracy, socially liberal policies /
| conservatively fiscal policies, etc.) But we should at
| least draw the line at genocide.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| It is being argued that was not constitutional
|
| You can check this for more info:
| https://melissacrouch.com/2021/02/07/the-illegality-of-
| myanm...
|
| That professor is an expert on the constitution.
| vmception wrote:
| thanks, is there an authority or arbiter in that country
| left that people can respect, or does it now require
| external intervention
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| can you explain what you mean?
|
| There is an elected representatives that have the
| people's support.
| vmception wrote:
| A Supreme Court to clear it up, a court that people
| respect.
|
| A branch of the government thinks its actions are
| constitutional, the people and the elected
| representatives don't.
|
| Just because we are conditioned to favor outcomes that
| are more inclusive and democratic, doesn't mean it is the
| legally compliant option.
|
| Just because a scholar and constitutional expert has an
| argument, doesn't mean it is the only interpretation.
|
| So is there a court that can take the arguments from the
| scholar on behalf of the people, and the arguments from
| the military, and make a ruling?
| jessaustin wrote:
| _...or..._
|
| It's entirely possible for there to be no such authority
| in place, _without_ requiring "external intervention".
| In that case the people who live there might create such
| an authority, or they might not.
|
| Eventually we might realize how all humans are harmed by
| subjugation to authority.
| ehsankia wrote:
| > but the democratic part was accused for not opposing in any
| visible way.
|
| I definitely found that strange at the time, especially since
| said democratic part had previously gotten a peace nobel
| prize, but considering she was imprisoned by the military
| before and after this whole semi-democratic experiment, is it
| well accepted now that she was mostly under the control of
| the military and had very little choice in any of the matter?
| Or do people still think she was mostly complicit for not
| speaking up, at the risk of compromising the little bit of
| democracy they had.
| joshstrange wrote:
| My understanding is she feared exactly what happened, a
| coup, if she spoke out. I'm not saying that is wrong or
| right but that's the position she was in and the choice she
| made with, now proven, fears of coup. Did she have a
| choice? Of course she had a choice but it would appear she
| saw it as "be morally correct" or "maintain democracy" and
| decided to go with the latter. I hate to say it but I'm not
| sure if I would have picked a different course of action
| given the same choices.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I'm not saying that is wrong or right but that's the
| position she was in and the choice she made with, now
| proven, fears of a coup.
|
| I am - it was wrong.
|
| Her position went beyond making a hard choice, she
| defended the genocide and the generals. Describing the
| generals involved as 'sweet' and the victims as
| 'terrorists', she is part of the problem.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/23/aung-san-
| suu-k...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2018/nov/12/a...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| That's politics baby. If you call people you have the
| power to destroy you evil you're going to get destroyed.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Which is the government that committed genocide? The one that
| lost power, the one that sized power, or some other one?
| elmomle wrote:
| It would seem from the language of Wikipedia
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide, pp2) that the
| military (current group in power) bears chief responsibility--
| one thing I do know is that the military long existed as an
| independent power structure in the country. So it seems like
| they would only have driven the genocide its leaders had wanted
| to (given that this has been a deliberate, years-long
| operation). Perhaps someone with deeper knowledge could say
| more.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| on the first page of your link: The Burmese government
| dismissed these as "exaggerations"
|
| It doesn't look like the government cared too much about the
| well-being of the genocided population. This is a hallmark in
| most genocides in history. The government doesn't have to
| order a massacre, most of the times it's just doing nothing.
| [deleted]
| SirSavary wrote:
| Someone once described Myanmar to me as a "military with a
| country" instead of a "country guarded by a military".
| lostlogin wrote:
| This applies to a lot of places unfortunately.
| joshstrange wrote:
| I'm not an expert on this but from what I've heard it
| sounds like the "government" (which, remember, had 1/4th of
| it's seats and cabinet-type positions apportioned to the
| military, by the military) might not have had a "good"
| option on how to respond to this. It appears they stayed
| silent on it for fear the military would just stage a coup
| if they spoke out. As it turns out the military did in fact
| stage a coup as soon as they saw their hold on the
| government weakening (right after the recent election and
| when the newly elected people were coming to be sworn in is
| when they executed the coup).
|
| On one hand I want to say the "government" didn't care and
| should be held accountable for not speaking up about the
| genocide.
|
| On the other hand I see how they might have been too scared
| to call it out for fear of a coup. Fears that seems to have
| been well founded...
|
| As with most things it's not black and white.
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| >>On the other hand I see how they might have been too
| scared to call it out for fear of a coup. Fears that
| seems to have been well founded...
|
| Not a good reason. Whenever I hear or read something
| about a group allowing, being silent in face of an event
| like that, I remember Srebrenica massacre [1]
|
| I clearly remember how Aung San Suu Kyi defends Myanmar
| from accusations of genocide in UN [2]. She and her
| government are as much party to the genocide as those who
| pulled the triggers. I hope I live long enough to see the
| day they are brought to justice.
|
| 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre 2-
| https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/12/1053221
| flavius29663 wrote:
| The one that lost power in the coup. They were in office since
| 2016. The genocide started in 2016. This seems to be a
| complicated situation, just like it was in Syria, and anyone
| who tries to simplify it and show a single sided story is
| trying to sell you.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| That's not actually accurate. The genocide started way before
| 2016. It started with the 1962 law and the more brutal
| cleansing in 1980s.
|
| There are a few books that I can recommend if you would like
| to read more.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Even when Myanmar had a democratically elected government the
| military still had huge political power because the
| constitution had a clause that let them retake power whenever
| they wanted. The legitimate leader was always afraid of this
| happening, so it's quite hard to separate the two governments.
| filereaper wrote:
| I don't want to minimize the geopolitical issue here but wanted
| to ask about microsatellites and the ISS.
|
| How do you put the satellite onto its intended orbit, like are
| only satellites intended with a polar orbit capable of this
| approach?
|
| Do you need booster rockets to get in the right orbit?
|
| Can we go the other way and use the ISS as like an orbital garage
| to capture and fix satellites?
|
| This is the first I've heard if the ISS holding onto satellites,
| I thought satellites are deployed by the launch rocket and just
| put into orbit.
| outworlder wrote:
| They have to be 'roughly' in the same orbit as the ISS. You can
| go up or down. You would't really do any inclination changes
| (if you, say, wanted an equatorial orbit) as there's no way a
| microsat would have enough fuel. Better to launch in the
| correct inclination.
|
| > Can we go the other way and use the ISS as like an orbital
| garage to capture and fix satellites?
|
| Moving the whole station doesn't really make sense. Even a
| vehicle would burn a lot of fuel, and would only really work,
| once again, in the same (or close to the same) inclination.
|
| Inclination changes are so expensive that there was at least
| one case where an operator sent a satellite all the way to the
| Moon and back, because it cost less fuel that way.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Inclination changes are so expensive that there was at
| least one case where an operator sent a satellite all the way
| to the Moon and back, because it cost less fuel that way.
|
| To get a good rule-of-thumb for this in your brain, you can
| think of it in terms of vector mathematics.
|
| Consider a circular orbit. Now consider two vectors: one in
| the direction of that orbit, one perpendicular to it. A naive
| inclination change from 0 degrees to 90 degrees, with no
| other change to the orbit's dynamics (i.e. same eccentricity,
| same periapsis / apoapsis), require the velocity to change
| from parallel to the first vector to parallel to the second,
| at the same magnitude. That's a total change of SQRT(2 *
| starting_velocity^2) ~= 1.4 * starting velocity. If we
| consider a velocity that is LEO (about 7.8 km/s), our total
| velocity change would have to be about 10.92 km/s.
|
| Putting a satellite into LEO from Earth's surface only costs
| between 9 and 10 km/s from gravity loss, steering, and wind
| resistance. Earth is a deceptively expensive gravity well to
| be doing inclination change maneuvers in.
| stetrain wrote:
| This really only works if your satellite is very small and you
| are okay with being in roughly the same orbit as the ISS.
|
| It is certainly not the norm for satellite launches, but if
| your mission meets the parameters and there is available space
| on a cargo supply that's already going to the ISS, you can
| potentially get a cheaper ride by going that route.
|
| As far as I know the ISS doesn't have any facilities for
| "bringing in" a larger satellite or repairing it. NASA is
| pretty protective of the ISS and objects approaching it have to
| follow very particular procedures and be certified for the
| process (Dragon, Cygnus, etc.).
|
| Also most satellites aren't in an orbit similar to the ISS.
| Things usually either get launched equitorially (east), polar
| (north/south), or are are much higher altitude in geostationary
| orbit. The ISS has a peculiar orbital inclination to make it
| more accessible to both US and Russian launch sites.
| Animats wrote:
| _This is the first I 've heard if the ISS holding onto
| satellites, I thought satellites are deployed by the launch
| rocket and just put into orbit._
|
| It's a commercial service, from Nanoracks.[1] They load
| cubesats into a container, have them shipped to the ISS, and
| the satellites are "launched" with a spring. So they're in
| roughly the same orbit as the ISS.
|
| The price just went way up. NASA raised their price on
| transport to the Space Station from $3,000 per kilogram to
| $20,000 per kilogram. They also raised the astronaut labor rate
| to $130,000/hour. NASA was subsidizing the ISS launch scheme.
| So future cubesats will probably be launched from a Falcon 9
| using one of Space-X's resellers.
|
| [1] https://nanoracks.com/products/iss-deployment/
|
| [2] http://parabolicarc.com/2021/03/05/nasa-jacks-up-iss-
| commerc...
| Defenestresque wrote:
| Interesting article. As you mentioned, NASA is justifying the
| >6x price increase with:
|
| >In announcing the policy change, NASA said it had previously
| subsidized transportation to and from the station in order to
| foster the development of commercial space applications.
|
| >"Since making these opportunities available, there has been
| a growing demand for commercial and marketing activities from
| both traditional aerospace companies and from novel
| industries, demonstrating the benefits of the space station
| to help catalyze and expand space exploration markets and the
| low-Earth orbit economy," the space agency said. "As a
| result, NASA has updated its pricing policy for commercial
| activities conducted on the station to reflect full
| reimbursement for the value of NASA resources."
|
| While I don't have any reason not to take this explanation at
| face value, I am curious about the timing. Did they just have
| too many potential customers to justify subsidizing the cost?
|
| I was also surprised to see a "trash disposal" line item in
| the price catalog. It doesn't sound like ISS-generated waste.
| Does anyone know if this is literally people paying thousands
| of dollars per kg to transport cargo to space in order to
| dispose it by burning it up on re-entry? What could justify
| such a cost? Are there examples? What kind of restrictions on
| items are there?
|
| (Perhaps I should just Google this myself! :)
| Goronmon wrote:
| _While I don 't have any reason not to take this
| explanation at face value, I am curious about the timing.
| Did they just have too many potential customers to justify
| subsidizing the cost?_
|
| That, or from a different perspective, as commercial launch
| capabilities increase, they don't want to kill competition
| by subsidizing a service that other companies want to be
| able to offer (at a non-subsidized cost).
| NortySpock wrote:
| All trash (food wrappers, paper, packaging, some medical
| waste I presume, old experiment gear, etc), and dehydrated
| sewage, currently only leaves the space station via
| visiting vessels. It requires an astronaut's time to pack
| trash, disconnect and seal dehydrated sewage containers,
| and load them into a visiting spacecraft prior to
| departure.
|
| Imagine having trash and sewage picked up only twice a
| month or once a month. That's about how often new vehicles
| visit the space station.
|
| Some uncrewed vehicles (Russia's Roscosmos Progress
| vehicle, Japan's JAXA HTV, USA's Northrop Grumman Cygnus)
| are designed to burn up on reentry. SpaceX Dragon is
| designed to make it to the ground and thus would need to be
| unpacked after splashdown.
|
| Nanoracks' Bishop airlock is supposed to offer trash
| disposal-to-orbit, but has not been used in orbit yet.
| mcountryman wrote:
| I had to picture someone opening a window and throwing it into
| orbit haha
| Steltek wrote:
| It's actually pretty cool. They have a space torpedo
| launcher:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoracks_CubeSat_Deployer#/me.
| ..
|
| What I haven't figured out is how they get the sats far
| enough away from the ISS orbit with only one push.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Relativity. At the moments before launch, the ISS and
| satellite are moving at the same speed. The launch gives
| extra velocity (positive delta-v??) which ever so slightly
| due to mass differences gives a tiny push against the ISS.
| So the satellite continues to pull away with its increase
| in velocity. See Newton's first law of motion.
|
| However, after launch, the small satellite usually has no
| ability to course correct, and its orbit slowly decays to
| friction with the thin atmosphere. Meanwhile, ISS continues
| to course correct.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| A minor nitpick but it's not relativity (as in Einstein's
| relativity,) it's just relative velocity.
|
| The launch imparts velocity on the satellite but that
| velocity difference doesn't mean it flies in formation
| with the ISS a few hundred meters or a few kilometers
| apart. If they were launched in the direction the ISS is
| going (positive delta-v), that extra velocity means a
| higher orbit; if they're launched backwards (negative
| delta-v), it'll be a lower orbit. If it's launched
| sideways, it's either higher, lower, or same depending on
| delta-v but a different inclination (angle to the
| equator.) I couldn't quickly find where exactly the
| deployer is located but I'm guessing it's aft because
| it's the same module the ISS launches it's trash out of
| now (the Bishop airlock,) and I'm guessing they wouldn't
| launch anything in a fast decaying slightly higher orbit
| just to get hit by it a few cycles later.
|
| The whole thing it's pretty cool, and it's quite new, it
| was installed only 3 months ago.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Wouldn't sideways launch give an orbit that sometimes
| overlap with the original orbit or is there some maths
| that makes sure that never happens?
| Steltek wrote:
| My understanding is that a transfer orbit requires two
| thrusts and otherwise, with only one push, all you've
| done is make for an eccentric orbit that still intersects
| your original one.
|
| Again, I'm ignorant of these things but it seems like
| depending on atmospheric drag to provide for the
| additional correction is risking a lot.
| genera1 wrote:
| There are even manual deployments
| https://youtu.be/-hutA7In7GA
| bagels wrote:
| If you give it a few cm/s velocity, the separation distance
| grows over time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Great, so they're essentially littering. I hope the Space
| Force Police pull them over to issue a citation. At least,
| this will burn up in the atmo rather than in a water system,
| or do they turn themselves into microparticles ultimately
| landing in the oceans? They really are litter
| bagels wrote:
| It's low orbit ~400km, the lifetime of these things is
| measured in weeks or months.
| jerf wrote:
| And the Earth picks up about 40,000 tons of space dust
| per year.
|
| We've got a lot of work to do before our space
| "littering" can even dream of matching that level... and
| that's just a coincidental level that nature happens to
| have, not some sort of threshold for "real harm", which
| I'd guess to be multiple orders of magnitude higher.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So do McDonalds wrappers is my point.
| genera1 wrote:
| It's not that far off from the truth
| ekimekim wrote:
| https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits...
|
| Sounds like in most cases the satellites don't have any
| propulsion of their own, and are "ejected" onto their orbit
| from the ISS. Put simply, they get thrown out.
|
| I'm sure some checks are done of the orbital mechanics to avoid
| any risk of a later collission, but keep in mind that the ISS
| makes frequent course corrections to stay in orbit, and at this
| low of an orbit drag is also a factor, so simply being a
| smaller craft will cause different forces to push you onto a
| different path.
|
| Obviously this means you have very little choice in your orbit,
| but for many small satellites this isn't a concern.
|
| EDIT: To answer your "use it as a garage" point, the answer is
| that it's way too impractical. In orbital mechanics, drifting
| apart from something is far easier than getting closer to it,
| and space is really, really big. Plus keep in mind that you
| need to not only be in the same _place_ at the same _time_ ,
| but you also need to be moving at the same _speed_ (relative
| velocities in LEO can quickly reach the order of kilometers per
| second).
| filereaper wrote:
| I imagined deploying a net of some sort to get close but not
| extremely close.
|
| But I guess the high velocities mean you need a _really_
| strong and light net and the rapid deceleration might damage
| the satellite anyway.
| simonh wrote:
| Rifle bullet speed is a relatively small delta for orbiting
| craft, it goes up quite a few orders of magnitude from
| that. Pretty much anything you encounter that you didn't
| specifically try very hard to match orbits with is going to
| blast right through a net.
|
| There were studies on using the Shuttle to repair
| satellites, but aside from the maintenance mission on
| Hubble those plans were shelved. The cost of a new
| satellite was generally a lot less than the cost of a
| shuttle mission dedicated to repairing it, and it would
| often need to be dedicated due to the requirement to match
| orbits.
|
| Even if the ISS released a smallsat, which it does from
| time to time, that doesn't help you. By the time you need
| to do maintenance on it, the cubesat will have dropped into
| a much lower orbit due to upper atmosphere effects.
|
| The safest, and practically perhaps the only viable way for
| the ISS to do maintenance on orbital instruments is if they
| stay attached to the ISS.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| > it goes up quite a few orders of magnitude from that
|
| Sorry to be pedantic, but modern rifle muzzle velocities
| are in the 1.2km/s range. Escape velocity in LEO is
| 11.2km/s, so your maximal closing speed is ~22.4kms.
| Which is maybe 1.3 orders of magnitude difference, not
| "quite a few". Orders of magnitude are big.
|
| For the rest, you are right of course: we're talking
| closing speeds that can easily be one order of magnitude
| higher than rifle bullets (or armor-piercing tank
| projectiles, for that matter; those are at 1.7km/s or
| so).
| db48x wrote:
| What matters in a collision isn't velocity, it's
| momentum. Momentum is 1/2mv2. There's a lot of orders of
| magnitude just in the mass, but the velocities add up a
| lot faster than you'd think too. I'd say there's around
| 10 orders of magnitude between the momentum of a rifle
| bullet and the momentum of a communications satellite at
| escape velocity.
| dheera wrote:
| I guess it depends if you operate in base 2 or base 10.
| hinoki wrote:
| Naturally, you should use base e, which gives about 3
| orders of magnitude.
| dheera wrote:
| > Pretty much anything you encounter that you didn't
| specifically try very hard to match orbits with is going
| to blast right through a net.
|
| If a zombie satellite needed to be decomissioned, could
| it be shot down and left for the pieces to disintergrate
| in the atmosphere instead?
| Arubis wrote:
| If the zombie sat in question is in a _very_ low orbit,
| this can be a reasonable approach, because the
| atmospheric drag can pull the pieces down faster than
| would've occurred on an intact satellite.
|
| Otherwise, you risk just creating more high-v debris. At
| the extreme end of this, you could trigger the Kessler
| Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)
| and make orbit practically unusable.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Yes but then instead of one trackable, piece of junk you
| have many small pieces some too small to track.
|
| In fact the Chinese satellite destruction test in 2007
| was a very good example of this:
|
| " Anti-satellite missile tests, especially ones involving
| kinetic kill vehicles as in this case, contribute to the
| formation of orbital space debris which can remain in
| orbit for many years and could interfere with future
| space activity (Kessler syndrome).[7] This event was the
| second largest creation of space debris in history after
| Project West Ford, with more than 2,000 pieces of
| trackable size (golf ball size and larger) officially
| catalogued in the immediate aftermath, and an estimated
| 150,000 debris particles.[24][25] As of October 2016, a
| total of 3,438 pieces of debris had been detected, with
| 571 decayed and 2,867 still in orbit nine years after the
| incident.[26]
|
| More than half of the tracked debris orbits the Earth
| with a mean altitude above 850 kilometres (530 mi), so
| they would likely remain in orbit for decades or
| centuries.[27] Based on 2009 and 2013 calculations of
| solar flux, the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office
| estimated that around 30% of the larger-
| than-10-centimeter (3.9 in) debris would still be in
| orbit in 2035.[28]
|
| In April 2011, debris from the Chinese test passed 6
| kilometres (3.7 mi) away from the International Space
| Station.[29]
|
| As of April 2019, 3000 of the 10,000 pieces of space
| debris routinely tracked by the US Military as a threat
| to the International Space Station were known to have
| originated from the 2007 satellite shoot down.[30]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
| satellite_mi...
| LASR wrote:
| It would be like trying to catch a hypervelocity meteor
| with a net. It would go right through any kind of
| reasonable(or even extreme) net material.
|
| Keep in mind that when the atmosphere is used to "catch" a
| returning spacecraft, it takes several minutes of sustained
| deceleration over thousands of miles, and in the process
| the craft gets extremely hot due to compressive heating and
| friction with air.
|
| When you have satellites on different orbital planes, it
| can be twice as hard due to relative velocities.
| jiofih wrote:
| The ISS orbits at 400km altitude and 27000km/h, while many
| small satellites will orbit lower - I suppose this is what
| makes it possible to "drop" a non-propulsive satellite from
| the ISS like the one in the article.
|
| As their orbit decays, they would actually need tons of
| fuel to _accelerate_ and raise their orbit to reach the
| station, it's totally impractical.
|
| EDIT: not geostationary
| viklove wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense. If you want to orbit at a
| lower speed, you need to increase your altitude.
| Geostationary orbit is at 35,000+ km, while the ISS
| orbits at ~400 km.
| madpata wrote:
| Don't you mean much higher? Like at 36MM/36,000km?
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| Geostationary orbits are much higher altitude to achieve
| lower orbit speeds. Gravity is stronger closer to the
| surface. But they'd still need a lot of fuel to slow
| down, to drop lower to the ISS' orbit, and then they'd be
| on an elliptical, and need even more to circularize and
| rendezvous.
|
| edit: I'm the third one to say this in a span of a
| minute, sorry.
| gpav wrote:
| Instead of geostationary, I think you mean low earth
| orbit (LEO). There is a link to the Wikipedia article on
| LEO in an adjacent comment. A circular geostationary
| orbit is at an altitude of 22,236 miles/35,786
| kilometers.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit
| [deleted]
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea a few Kerbal Space Program sessions were enough to
| convince me that it's totally impractical to have a
| "collector" spacecraft that just goes around collecting old
| satellites and space trash in different orbits.
| Fordec wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not at all convinced of the garbage man satellite
| idea. The Delta-V calculations only make sense if the craft
| is very big. And all the very big ones are in GEO, not LEO,
| where it's even harder to achieve.
|
| Lasers that act as a long term external pressure for small
| stuff, maybe. But the laser strength, object tracking and
| object targeting tech still has a long long way to go
| before that is viable.
|
| Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order. We need to start
| applying it to space too. The most viable path to reducing
| space debris right now is not creating it in the first
| place. Through reusable rockets, miniaturization, and
| removing mechanisms that give off less debris during
| operation like stopping the use of explosive bolts or
| reducing the need for protective coverings. Lowering the
| regulated maximum 25 year lifespan of a satellite further
| would also be an option.
| stingrae wrote:
| If you plan for it can and has been done though at least
| for a single satellite. The Space shuttle serviced Hubble
| several times https://hubblesite.org/mission-and-
| telescope/servicing-missi...
| ericbarrett wrote:
| The issue isn't launching to intercept a body in orbit,
| though--in those missions, the shuttle was launched at
| the Hubble. Just that wandering between orbits to
| "collect" debris and satellites en masse is not really
| feasible with rockets as we know and build them.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| KSP gave me the exact same impression, but there's one
| thing I wonder about: with sufficiently smart global
| optimization algorithm, maybe a collector craft _could_
| approach and collect several targets on a low Dv budget? It
| 's not something you could do manually, but space has also
| this nice property that you can predict trajectories
| accurately far in advance, so it may be amendable to
| optimization.
|
| Wonder if there's a paper somewhere that computed possible
| Dv requirements for a collector if you squeeze your flight
| plan very tight.
|
| (Also in-orbit refueling will change this equation a lot.
| You could keep a bunch of such collectors continuously in
| space, and wait for the trash to align right. There's no
| hurry.)
| gmueckl wrote:
| Assuming you manage to grab a hold of debris without
| ripping off even tiny parts, how would you dispose of it?
| You'd need to deorbit it and you need a working engine
| for that. So a reusable collector doesn't seem like a
| plausible concept to me.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| Shoot it with a dart that has a really long wire attached
| to it, then release the wire to drag in atmosphere, so
| the satellite is slowly pulled down?
| CompuHacker wrote:
| You can attach a wire to an object in Earth orbit and use
| the magnetic field of the Earth to change that object's
| orbit over time, as well.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| That's an interesting idea, I wonder if you would need a
| loop or a winding method to get enough counter-emf?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There are some interesting ways of adding drag to
| objects.
|
| Increasing surface area will (eventually) de-orbit due to
| drag.
|
| The wire methods mentioned earlier could possibly offer
| the option for magnetic / induction drag.
|
| Ion engines are an option, though they're spendy.
|
| Geosync orbit is the tough one. It's much larger, but the
| sweet spots (equatorial orbits) are relatively scarce.
|
| Mandating methods of clearing critical orbits (for GEO)
| or deorbiting (for LEO) implemented prior to deployment
| is probably the more viable option.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Could an astronaut grab a smaller satellite and simply
| chuck it towards the sun? Would it have enough velocity
| break out of earth orbit or would it just get stuck in
| some really large, wide, graveyard orbit?
|
| If not the sun then maybe the earth?
|
| That would be a fun spacewalk.
| DavidSJ wrote:
| The [?]v to escape Earth orbit is generally quite large,
| and it's far, far greater still to collide with the Sun
| (though this wouldn't normally be considered necessary).
|
| In comparison, a deorbit burn is usually relatively
| inexpensive.
| [deleted]
| taejo wrote:
| From low Earth orbit, delta-v to Earth and to escape the
| solar system are about the same. Delta-v to fall into the
| sun is two orders of magnitude bigger.
| dmoy wrote:
| It would be difficult for an astronaut to chuck an object
| with over 32,000m/s of delta-v.
|
| For comparison, the fastest bullets go like ~1,500m/s,
| and they are very very very small.
| JshWright wrote:
| It takes a "huge" amount of energy to get something to
| the sun.
|
| Something in earth orbit is also orbiting the Sun. The
| Earth is traveling ~30km/second around the Sun. If you
| want to fall into the sun, you have to cancel out all
| that sideways speed.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Another fun thing I didn't really understand all that
| clearly until I spent time playing KSP: Why it's
| theoretically easier to get to the Sun from Pluto than it
| is to do so from here.
| sharpneli wrote:
| Another thing some KSP mods gave an impression to me was
| how seemingly magical ideal encounters and transfer
| windows they could make.
|
| Even though I couldn't make it myself by the usual orbit
| tools I also wouldn't be too surprised if it was possible
| to gather bunch of stuff with like < 100m/s delta v or
| whatnot.
|
| KSP taught me that flying a rocket is "easy". But
| calculating the stuff is hard (well, computationally
| intensive. So it can be easy, but hard for humans in
| their head).
| baby wrote:
| Leo?
| filereaper wrote:
| Low Earth Orbit
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit
| [deleted]
| Voloskaya wrote:
| It's fairly common nowadays. Companies like Nanoracks [1]
| specialize in this. Obviously this can only be done for
| cubesats.
|
| They are put into orbit simply by being ejected at the right
| angle and speed from the ISS.
|
| [1]: https://nanoracks.com/products/iss-deployment/
| filereaper wrote:
| Wow, this is super interesting.
|
| I didn't realize launching satellites had become so turnkey
| now where you don't have all the friction of dealing with
| NASA or any large space agency.
|
| Nanoracks has an interesting list of customers, like Adidas
| and Double-Tree by Hilton?!
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Nanoracks does commercial things on the ISS other than
| cubesat launches. IIRC the Doubletree thing was they sent
| up an oven and had an astronaut bake cookies using their
| recipe
| nickik wrote:
| Checkout out: https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/
|
| Probably the cheapest way to launch things. However, SpaceX
| has no interest in dealing with everybody that wants to
| launch a cubsat so you have to go to an integrator.
| resist_futility wrote:
| Looks like they are launched from a specialty module on the ISS
| with only a spring https://iss.jaxa.jp/en/kiboexp/jssod/
| nickik wrote:
| Now its done with the Nanoracks Airlock:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Ex.
| ..
| T3RMINATED wrote:
| I dare Japan to hold USAs satellite. They spy on them DAILY.
| codezero wrote:
| The politics around a decision like this are fascinating. I
| assume they've already paid in part or in full for the launch,
| and regardless, they did R&D on a satellite which is itself an
| asset that is now difficult to return to the owner!
| jaywalk wrote:
| Also, "the contract with MAEU did not specify that the
| satellite cannot be used for military purposes."
|
| I completely understand why they're doing this, but it's tough
| to see how it's legal.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Don't they say that the great secret of international law, is
| that there is no international law?
|
| This situation is an example of what they mean by that.
| WJW wrote:
| Concepts like legality have much less meaning between
| countries. It's not like there is a court where Myanmar can
| sue if it wants their satellite back. At this level, the
| ultimate recourse is declaring war and reclaiming it by force
| but we all know how that would turn out.
| celtain wrote:
| Not all international disagreements are disagreements
| between sovereign nations themselves. It's possible that
| MAEU could sue JAXA or Hokkaido University in a Japanese
| court if they think they're violating Japanese law.
|
| If that's not the case, or if the Diet passes a new law
| that protects their countrymen in this dispute, then yeah
| it becomes the type of conflict you describe.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Diplomacy is a critical function of any government due to
| what you're saying, and IMO this could be a consequence of
| Myanmar neglecting that reality (for a myriad of valid and
| invalid reasons, I don't know enough about the current
| situation to speak with any intelligence about it).
| ramphastidae wrote:
| According to what law? Tried in which court? And enforced by
| who? International law is basically: "Don't like it? Well
| what ya gonna do about it?"
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| Imagine you were contracted to release a satellite and then
| you realize you might be providing military equipment to a
| hostile nation.
|
| Would you really think to yourself "Well the contract doesn't
| say I can't do this"?...
| rantwasp wrote:
| keep the satellite. shipping back is gonna be more than what we
| payed for it
| slg wrote:
| You used "they" a couple times in that comment and it is
| important to question who "they" is given the political
| environment in Myanmar. Is the "they" that paid for the
| satellite and did the R&D the same "they" that who would be
| controlling the satellite? If not, would the new "they" use the
| capabilities of this satellite in a nefarious way?
| seniorgarcia wrote:
| In context of this satellite, they is the MAEU (Myanmar
| Aerospace Engineering University) and the reason the
| satellite is being held is because apparently JAXA (Japan
| Aerospace Exploration Agency) can't reach the rector of the
| MAEU to make sure what the satellite would be used for.
|
| The reason why they can't reach the rector of the MAEU is
| because he might have been arrested or is in hiding
| (https://www.myanmar-now.org/en/news/soldiers-raid-
| aerospace-...).
|
| So, all in all, Japan is being careful and the situation in
| Myanmar is "undetermined". I think it is questionable where
| the "spying concern" is coming from, aside from being
| clickbait.
|
| >Officials at JAXA could not be reached for comment. MAEU did
| not respond to calls seeking comment, nor did a spokesman for
| Myanmar's junta.
|
| It could be used for spying, because it's a satellite with
| cameras. If it has the capabilities to be used for spying is
| unclear, all the data would go through Japan anyway. Japan
| does not want to comment on it, persons responsible at MAEU
| are in prison or in hiding and the junta would probably lie
| anyway.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Oppsie! We dropped it and it burned up. Sorry lol
| drak0n1c wrote:
| Something similar happened with the US and Iran. The Shah paid
| for military fighter jets, but then the Islamist theocracy took
| over. So the US froze the money and obviously wasn't going to
| deliver the jets to a USSR supported regime. The question of
| property legitimacy after a revolution is a recurring one
| throughout history.
|
| https://time.com/4441046/400-million-iran-hostage-history/
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Since when was Khomeini USSR supported? Tudeh and MeK got
| their butts handed to them pretty early on.
| [deleted]
| naringas wrote:
| "we can spy, but you can't" --"1st world" western powers
|
| There must be a more modern term than "1st world", I just don't
| know it.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| FVEY. The Five Eyes. Five English-speaking countries that share
| military strength and intelligence. Somehow the world simply
| tolerates all the blatant espionage they perpetrate with zero
| diplomatic repercussions. The USA alone probably has more
| espionage satellites in space than every other nation combined.
| downrightmike wrote:
| USA learned it's lesson after being isolationist leading up
| to mass genocide and world wars. A league of nations didn't
| work, so things evolved into the USA being the guard dog for
| the world.
| xxpor wrote:
| Because other European countries know they're screwed without
| the US's backing. In return, those countries don't have to
| spend nearly as much on defense as they would otherwise. You
| can see why this would be politically advantageous for the
| Europeans.
|
| Outside of that, who could do anything diplomatically to the
| US that wouldn't just be laughed off?
| modo_mario wrote:
| You do realize the EU has a mutual protection clause
| similar to Nato. Russia can't exactly invade. It's economy
| is smaller than Italy's. I don't think the EU depends as
| much on US defence as some Americans would have one
| believe.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Russia already invaded Ukraine.
| lolinder wrote:
| Ukraine isn't in the EU, so that doesn't actually prove
| anything about the EU's ability to defend itself.
| jsty wrote:
| > Somehow the world simply tolerates all the blatant
| espionage they perpetrate with zero diplomatic repercussions
|
| Because pretty much every other country with a security
| service is either pursuing similar operations or wants to be.
| Sure when something becomes public a fuss gets made, but
| oddly enough no concrete repercussions ever follow.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You can spy too any time you want, right after you develop a
| launch platform. Until then, you develop anything you want to
| deploy to space, but if the launch agency you've contract with
| changes their mind, well, you've got a nice shiny museum
| exhibit.
| naringas wrote:
| so... might makes right?
| samus wrote:
| Nobody is forbidding Myanmar to launch their own satellite.
| After all, the Chinese and the North Koreans pretty much do
| whatever they want up there as well. But if you cooperate
| with others to put something up there, it would be very
| unusual if you wouldn't have to compromise. This includes
| limits on what purposes the equipment can be used for.
|
| Actually, according to TA, it seems Myanmar's government
| hasn't quite decided what to do with the thing. It's
| probably quite low right now on their list of priorities.
| And the Japanese still have to consider whether to toss it
| out or not. After all, the thing is up there already (sunk
| cost fallacy and all that). It seems possible they can work
| something out.
| xeromal wrote:
| Isn't that how the human race works? Big monke stronger
| than little monke
| xxpor wrote:
| Might might not make right, but it does make the winner of
| conflicts.
| adventured wrote:
| Since we're dealing with geopolitics, genocide, conflict,
| etc. - what does right have to do with anything? Other than
| being an entirely hopeless ideal that is discarded
| immediately in conflict between nations or peoples.
|
| Might dictating outcomes has always been a fact of life.
| Why would anyone attempt to deny that aspect of living in
| reality? What good does it do to pretend reality isn't what
| it is?
|
| Might determining outcomes between nations will never stop
| being true. Everything else - the UN for example - is
| merely a very small (often laughable) influence, and at
| best reduces the brunt of the might factor.
|
| Pick a major country at any point in history. Might is huge
| part of their equation and there are no exceptions.
|
| The US and China can freely ignore the world, freely ignore
| the UN, freely ignore all rules, international laws,
| anything they want to. That's because there is nobody that
| can do anything about it. That fact of how things actually
| work merely lessens as you scale downward with nations (as
| the nation in question gets weaker), it never goes away.
| Weak countries can pick on weak opponents, see: Armenia vs
| Azerbaijan. Might always ultimately determines the world,
| including in defeating Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan
| in WW2. The strongest nations even have the most influence
| at the UN, so even soft politics is always backed by might.
| samus wrote:
| Why is any 1st world government supposed to help other
| governments spying? If Myanmar want a spy satellite up there,
| they should do it themselves. Or ask the Chinese. Can't imagine
| they wouldn't be interested in a launch platform closer to the
| equator...
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Not your satellite platform, not your satellite.
| rafale wrote:
| Not your keys, not your bitcoin :P
| st3ve445678 wrote:
| Begun, the space wars have.
| jtdev wrote:
| Maybe a "Spaceforce" is actually a good idea?
| yabones wrote:
| Nope, still not a good idea.
|
| The name alone suggests militarization of space which is a
| _horrible_ idea. The only thing that kept us alive through
| the 20th century was mutually assured destruction, and more
| importantly, the capability to detect ICBM launches and
| retaliate within the 30 minutes before your continent is
| glassed. Space launched nukes don 't give you any warning,
| you get at most 30 seconds to detect the shock heating in the
| high atmosphere before it's game over. It's an actual
| slippery slope, the very first payload containing weapons in
| orbit is a direct path towards space launched nuclear
| weapons.
| thevardanian wrote:
| The militarization of space is unfortunately inevitable.
| __john wrote:
| I think it will be the thing he is most remembered for.
| downrightmike wrote:
| lol, M4s won't do any good. Just let JPL solve this.
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