Over 250 objects hover within 6 m/sec of perfect geostationary orbit. Over half of these objects lie within 0.1 m/sec of the GEO velocity. Such items have 62% of the total velocity required to achieve Earth gravitational escape. A conceptual architecture is proposed to clean this orbit area of derelict objects while providing a demonstration mission for many facets of future asteroid mining operations. These near-GEO objects average nearly 2000kg each, consisting of (typically functioning) power systems, batteries, and large quantities of components and raw aerospace-grade refined materials. Such a demonstration collection system could capture, collect and remove all GEO derelict objects in an international effort to create a depot of components and of aerospace-grade raw materials--with a total mass greater than that of the International Space Station--as a space scrap depot ready for transfer to lunar or Mars orbit, using only two heavy-lift launches and 2-3 years of on-orbit operations.


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    Title :

    Drifting Recovery Base Concept for GEO Derelict Object Capture


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    International Conference on Orbital Debris Removal ; 2009 ; Chantilly, VA, United States


    Publication date :

    2009-01-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English


    Keywords :



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