Launched in 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory – formerly the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer – has been dutifully studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) during its two-year mission, before moving on to a more general space observation role during its ongoing mission. Unfortunately, the observatory is in LEO, at an altitude of around 370 km. The natural orbital decay combined with increased solar activity now threatens to end Swift’s mission, unless NASA can find someone who can boost its orbit.
Using Swift as a testbed for commercial orbit-boosting technologies, NASA is working with a number of companies to investigate options. One of these is the SSPICY demonstration of in-orbit inspection technology by Starfish Space that’s part of an existing Phase III program.
Although currently no option has been selected and Swift is still at risk of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere within the near future, there seems to be at least a glimmer of hope that this process can be reverted, and a perfectly fine triple-telescope space observatory can keep doing science for many years to come. Along the way it may also provide a blueprint for how to do the same with other LEO assets that are at risk of meeting a fiery demise.
LASERS
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/japan_laser_space_junk_plan/
Tldr for the article: Using a satelite mounted laser to vaporise parts of space debris. And in theory the vaporisation should be enough to nudge a spacecraft out of orbit.
It could be used the other way perhaps?
The goal is to boost the satellite, not vapourize it. They want it to actually keep working.
They could fire the lasers at the (presumably empty) thrusters?
Sure, if you want to blow it to smithereens and melt everything around them while you’re at it.
But what do you do on a rainy day, with all the rain clouds hanging up there?
A big fan would be needed to blow them away, wouldn’t it?
I wonder how much boost could realistically be achieved if they painted one half of every satellite black and the other half silvered, and used the reaction wheels to make one side face the sun on one half of the orbit and then spin it around on the other half, so they’d get an asymmetric boost from radiation pressure. Probably not enough to defeat atmospheric drag.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130514095117/http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=102
MESSENGER/ NASA probe made slightly ajusts using “solar Sail”
Very nice… And certainly much more feasible in the general region of Mercury’s orbit.
You have invented the world’s most terrible solar sail. Realistically, this kind approach (with different paints) has in practice only been useful for controlling which way a satellite is pointing.
Yes, quite terrible… But it’s something which might already exist on hardware that is quite difficult to access, depending on the paint job ;)
A lot of space heroics in the past have famously consisted of coming up with a not-ideal kludge which only uses the stuff you have up there. But I don’t think they’d be able to boost it enough, I’m just curious about how far from enough it would be, and I might do some back-of-the-envelope figures another day… but right now I can’t be bothered, so I thought I’d tempt some other reader to do it for me.
You need to quotes around that buddy… Ya know.. “Lazser”..
DR.. Evil
I thought NASA is taking suggestions how to replace the useless management fat with thousands of engineers, but I am wrong again. They want us, volunteers, to do the job of fired engineers instead.
i feel like im ai! lets halucinate some solutions!
That’s easy: train a model on the existing images from the telescope and you don’t need the telescope any more you can just let the AI generate the images.
As a bonus, the telescope will be boosted so far by the AI hype bubble that it’ll probably end up orbiting Uranus…
🤣
Thanks for the laugh!
Every institution is like 80% administration now, it’s insane. The managerial revolution theory was obviously correct and incredibly ahead of its time. Was at NASA recently and the surge of early retirements was depressing. Engineers that probably have knowledge and capabilities which won’t be replaced or transmitted into the future.
They’re mostly just getting old.
IIRC 1st corollary of peter principle:
‘The older the hierarchy, the more of the places are held by people operating at their level of incompetence.’
I think the most underappreciated corollary is:
Those operating at their level of incompetence know it at some level.
So they fill the hierarchy below them with even more incompetent people, to better hide.
Whole branches of hierarchy filled with those promoted far beyond their level of incompetence.
I regularly work with technical people who are “old”. One “old” technical person is worth ten old managers, experience and all. One “old” technical person is worth twenty “new”managers.
There are a lot of “old” people who know their stuff because managers made it impossible to find a replacement by sucking out all the resources into their pointless telescoping career ladders. We have what we have, useless managers faking merit in front of other managers faking merit in front of other managers faking merit.
I work with hierarchies of leeches on regular basis. It doesn’t get any better with years.
Elon should have thought about this when he launched is Roadster, and gotten more than a laugh out of the event. I’m sure he could have dreamt up a way to put some small thrusters on the car, and a literal Nerf (not nerf) bar on the front . . . . :D
It seems some folks in the comments have been misled by the HaD article title.
NASA is not asking John Q. Public how to boost a satellite orbit. They know how to do that.
From the press release linked, NASA has already awarded two companies a contract to provide a proposal from that company for a spacecraft to boost the orbit of the satellite, and is also evaluating an existing company’s proposal which was originally for a different use case. That’s it.
Dang… Here I was hoping they wanted input from a jamoke like myself who has played Kerbal Space Program a few times
What about booster rockets?
When you launch Starship seven could you make a couple of boosters out of the shell of Starlink.
11
Is that a European swift or an Asian swift?
Hard to say unless you know what the unladen airspeed velocity would be?
So if the us Air Force or space force has a unused intercept vehicle like the single sat shot down we did in the the 1980s from the bottom of a F 15 I propose replacing the warhead with a 3d printed shock and the largest suction cup ever in space the with modern controls the kill vehicle will boost it once to attaches
Lord help me. At first millisecond blush I thought this was even more Taylor Swift promotion.
+1
taylor’s orbit is already pass the Earth/Moon lagrangian point as it is. Boosting it evermore will send it spiraling out of the Earth orbit.
Gold foil, to protect the material from radiation, coated weather ballon delivers payload of pressurized oxygen capsule and mounting cup – upon reaching upper gravitational constraints it’s aimed and releases it’s payload as to adhear to the satellite becoming a temporary modular propulsion device which detaches and ejects itself from the satellite.
We could adjust the satellite speed or orbital path theoretically by such means.
How do we project what we use to navigate open space as a modular secondary system.
I’m not factoring in exit velocity for such system either – I believe, but I also don’t know the equations at play there.
SpaceX could use Starship to launch a compact, modular space station to LEO (~500 km) to serve as a hub for Swift’s orbit boost and other satellite servicing missions.
Starship deploys a station with docking ports, a propellant depot, and robotic arms, designed to support Starfish’s Otter or Katalyst’s tug.
The station hosts Otter for inspecting Swift, followed by a SpaceX-developed propulsion module (delivered by Cargo Dragon) to boost Swift’s orbit to ~500–600 km.
Crew Dragon could deliver astronauts to the station for oversight, ensuring precise operations. Starship’s massive payload capacity allows launching a fully equipped station in one go, reducing costs. SpaceX’s ISS experience ensures reliable deployment. Developing a station by 2026 is ambitious, requiring NASA funding and coordination with SpaceX’s Starship schedule.
Jeebus just hit it with a tennis ball. That is how we get shit off the roof. You hit the frisbee wedged behind the vent pipe. Bonus is it will not mar the satellite or surrounding furniture. They really should pay me for this shit.