SPACE: ISS needs a robot for space junk retreival

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Mar 22 2001 - 09:36:46 MST


>From

http://www.newschannel2000.com/orl/news/spacenews/stories/spacenews-54045020010315-090314.html

> The station and space shuttle are orbiting at an altitude of 240
> statute miles, following a 50-minute-long series of reboost maneuvers.
> The gentle, repeated firings of Discovery's smallest steering jets took
> place a day earlier than originally planned to ensure that the complex
> would remain clear of a piece of equipment that floated free during the
> mission's first spacewalk.

Ooops! Shows you how "clumsy" humans are. Really now, how difficult
would a Junk Retreival Robot be? A universal thruster group or two
for redundancy, a tank of hydrazine, a hand to grab things, a radar
to locate the junk, and a directional finder to find your way back
to the station. You could make it tele-operated, but I don't think
something this simple would require that.

Robert



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