Speaker: Vijay A. Kanade
Abstract: The space around the planet Earth is littered with vast amount of ‘Space Debris’. Space debris, junk, rubbish, remains, waste, or trash is a cluster of obsolete man-designed articles in space – old dilapidated satellites, wastes from multi-stage rockets, and flakes derived from erosion, collisions caused by debris itself or malfunctioning space units. This orbiting debris is growing at an alarming rate and posing a serious threat to the operational orbits above the planet. There is enough scientific evidence to suggest that the debris density at the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has already reached a sufficient level to trigger a chain reaction of debris-collisions. To avoid any damage to the essential orbiting satellites and to keep the planet’s space sustainable, we ought to soon embark on a mission of cleaning-up the space debris.
Space organizations and scientific communities around the world are well-informed of the threat space debris possesses and have developed solutions on how to tackle the problem for a better future. Prominent solution for the above problem includes launching a spacecraft for actively removing the dangerous plethora of space debris pieces. Such a missioner-spacecraft would isolate / de-orbit or clean several targets (i.e. debris) during one single mission. This raises a significantly relevant question of “what kind of targets and in what order should the spacecraft visit them?”
This talk answers the above question. It presents a novel method of employing ‘NeuroG’ (i.e. Neuro-engine) on a satellite platform for removing the space junk in a cost-effective & coherent manner.
Moreover, the talk also discusses the impact of space debris on future space missions and its potential to disrupt critical real-time applications on Earth, such as GPS navigation, satellite communications, weather forecasting, and Earth observation. Such disruptions can have farreaching effects on everyday life and global infrastructure. Thus, the talk throws light on the urgent need for governments and space agencies to address this problem for future space sustainability.
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