Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Space tug

A major problem in orbital dynamics is to move a satellite from one orbit to another. The "graveyard orbit" is perhaps most salient, as we have a space-junk problem in LEO and we'd prefer to have those things orbiting way out nowhere where they don't hit useful sats. But also, how about moving any of our useful sats to some higher orbit, more free of the junk. Maybe the ISS itself?

Zim da Man has a report on Intuitive Machines' mission next year. They've sold space, as it were, to Sherpa Escape; who are testing their space-tug. The tug, in turn, will attempt to move some sats to geosynchronous orbit, which for our 24-hour-rotation is waaaay high orbit.

The tug is a Russian-doll monster which will also be testing some other company's ability to transfer fuel in space.

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