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Space logistics startup TransAstra has won a contract with NASA to make a bag that will capture orbital debris. Under the US$850,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2
Space logistics startup TransAstra has won a contract with NASA to make a bag that will capture orbital debris. Under the US$850,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2 contract, TransAstra will create an inflatable catch bag and demonstrate on the ground how the device, which uses inflatable supports to open and close, wraps around an uncooperative object.
Capture bag technology was invented at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Asteroid Redirect Mission, a plan aimed at meeting a near-Earth asteroid and carrying it into lunar orbit.
TransAstra created a small holding bag in 2021 with funding from NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts. TransAstra’s new contract was awarded through NASA’s SBIR Ignite program, which supports early-stage technologies with potential commercial applications.
“We originally developed this small prototype capture bag to demonstrate low-Earth orbit asteroid mining using a synthetic asteroid,” he said. Space News Joel Sercel, founder and CEO of TransAstra. “But then we realized that this was the best way to clean up orbital debris.”
Small holding bags can remove cube moons. Larger bags could contain used rocket bodies, decommissioned fixed-position communications satellites or 50,000-tonne asteroids, Sercel said. Retention bags have some advantages over other orbital debris removal methods.
“It doesn’t require the target to have any holders,” Sercel said. “It does not require docking, which is a delicate maneuver. You have to be careful enough to open the bag, wrap it around and close it.’
For example, if the target object is spinning rapidly, the catch bag “must conform to some degree of rotation,” Sercel said.
Instead of removing one piece of debris at a time, TransAstra recommends lifting multiple objects with a single bag.
“If I have to fly to an object, capture it, enter a short-lived orbit, and then return to my working altitude, that would require a huge amount of fuel,” Sercel said. “Better to catch more than one piece of debris in one mission.”
A recent study by TransAstra and space infrastructure startup ThinkOrbital suggests transporting debris or inoperative satellites to an orbital processing facility.
Capturing, storing, and reusing space equipment cost six times less than the cost of transporting individual objects to an altitude low enough to quickly return to Earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the reuse approach reduced fuel costs by 82 percent and the time required to clear debris by 40 percent.
“These results confirm and highlight the potential of this approach to address one of space’s biggest and most pressing existential threats in a faster, simpler, more cost-effective and more sustainable way,” said Sebastian Asprella, co-founder and CEO of ThinkOrbital. said. In a statement. “The implications for advancing space industrialization in light of these findings are profound.”
TransAstra and Think Orbital propose launching capture bags to the TransAstra Worker Bee spacecraft. After the target entered the orbit of the debris, the worker bee would transport the debris to ThinkOrbital’s ThinkPlatform.
The proposed ThinkPlatform will be approximately 37 meters in diameter and 4,000 cubic meters in volume. ThinkOrbital plans to equip ThinkPlatform with tools for object inspection, repair, and reprocessing.
“The powerful combination of these revolutionary technologies creates an effective ecosystem that will instantly and permanently solve our growing problem of space debris,” said Nicole Shumaker, TransAstra’s vice president of strategic partnerships. “Repeated journeys to collect orbital debris and transport it to Earth’s atmosphere for destruction require significant amounts of fuel and time. Space rework stations are solving this problem and are building an asset that not only reduces orbital debris but also opens up new opportunities for manufacturing and construction in space. transforming.”
TransAstra and ThinkOrbital’s findings are the result of a two-part study. Through large-scale computer simulations, the company compared the cost and mass of fuel needed to destroy the debris on an orbital platform with capturing it to destroy it in the Earth’s atmosphere.
TransAstra plans to refuel the Worker Bee via ThinkPlatform.
The benefits of debris reuse remain the same for different debris masses and orbital heights, according to the press release.
“This research shows that we can and should think creatively about the debris disposal approach,” said Lee Rosen, ThinkOrbital co-founder and retired U.S. Air Force colonel. “This is critical not only for space exploration and industrialization, but also for our national defense.” Source
Source: Port Altele
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