ESA: Recycling orbital satellites - Clean Space

In-orbit configuration of ESA's OTS-2 telecom satellite. 

Launched 12 May 1978, the highly successful OTS-2 was not retired from geostationary orbit until January 1991. 

ESA's Orbital Test Satellite (OTS) project demonstrated technologies and techniques for a new generation of telecommunications satellites, leading directly to the ECS and Marecs designs. 

Credit: ESA

No matter how painstakingly we choose the materials to build satellites, once a mission is over they are just so much junk.

But what if one day they could be recycled in space for future missions – perhaps as construction material, fuel or even food?

As part of its Clean Space initiative, ESA is looking for new ideas on materials that could be recycled or converted into different, useful resources for other processes.

It costs a lot to put anything into space – a payload typically costs its own weight in gold – and the further it travels out into the Solar System the more valuable it becomes.

So recycling or converting space hardware for follow-on missions could bring significant added value.

The idea is inspired by the sustainable 'cradle to cradle' approach explored by terrestrial industry in recent years, where all the raw materials in a product can be later reused for another product, or consumed as food, with no waste residue and no loss in quality.

Adapting this approach to space, future planetary probes or satellites might become sources of fuel, water or other raw materials considered scarce for the exploration missions that come after them.

Examples might include grinding down metal alloys into powder to serve as raw materials for manufacturing new hardware by 3D printing.

Organic materials could be separated by heating for subsequent reuse of the resulting gases. Leftover solid rocket fuel might be broken down for reuse.

Biodegradable materials could be harnessed as biological nutrients in a life-support system, such as ESA's Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative, MELiSSA, a long-term effort to create artificial closed-loop life support serving future manned missions, based on microbes and higher plants.

But to enable such a widespread use of sustainable materials, future spacecraft might end up very different.

ESA's new invitation for 'Sustainable Materials Concepts' is seeking companies to study various concepts of this approach, including considering the kinds of materials that could be reused as biological or technical nutrients – serving as resources for new other processes.

Also under consideration:

• What sustainable materials might replace current space-grade materials such as titanium and aluminium alloys or carbon-fibre epoxy resins? 
• How might the use of materials as biological or technical nutrients work in practice?
• What level of energy might be required for such conversion processes? 
• Would 'slow manufacturing' following the example of nature be a way forward?

For more information check the invitation package, accessible via ESA's Electronic Mailing Invitation to Tender System (EMITS).

Spheres: Developing a Space Debris Removal Skill - YouTube

In-orbit rendezvous is a potential solution to address space debris removal, considered to be the predominant issue facing the arena of outer space security and safety.

DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is using an unusual resource to develop rendezvous capability with out of control satellites: a high school competition.

“The control procedures that were developed for the Zero Robotics Challenge will certainly benefit the Phoenix program,” said Dave Barnhart, DARPA program manager.

He was referring to DARPA’s defunct satellite recycling project, “but they also potentially have much wider implications for space-based technologies.”

Participants in the Zero Robotics Autonomous Space Capture Challenge designed algorithms to control a bowling-ball-sized programmable satellite known as SPHERES.

There are three SPHERES currently aboard the ISS for use in such experiments in an environment where there is no risk of losing the test subjects.

The algorithms were applied across three different scenarios in which the SPHERES satellite simulated an active spacecraft approaching an object tumbling through space.

The Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES)

Through the Phoenix program, DARPA aims to catch retired communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit in order to collect and re-use some of their components.

To do this, the Phoenix spacecraft will have to perform a delicate dance to safely synchronize movements with tumbling satellites and to be able to deploy tools and attach or remove targeted parts.

Extended use of such a technology could allow the removal of more general space debris like fragments from collisions and exploded rocket bodies or objects from extravehicular activities.

Coltan extraction in war torn Congo: Columbite-Tantalite is used in all Mobile Phones

Coltan is the industrial name for columbite–tantalite, a dull black metallic mineral from which the elements niobium (formerly "columbium") and tantalum are extracted. The niobium-dominant mineral is columbite, hence the "col" half of the term. The mineral concentrates dominated by tantalum are referred to as tantalite.

Tantalum from coltan is used to manufacture electronic capacitors, used in consumer electronics products such as cell phones, DVD players, video game systems and computers.

Export of coltan from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to European and American markets has been cited by experts as helping to finance the present-day conflict in the Congo.

The DanChurchAid agency asserts that "much of the finance sustaining the civil wars in Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is directly connected to Coltan profits."

An estimated 5.4 million people have died since 1998 in the war in the Congo.

Another view on recycling Mobile phones here

Rocket Science: Recycling Xmas Trees

If you have to boldly go.....go green!

A closeup of the replacement urine and body-fluid distillation assembly for the International Space Station's (ISS). The new water recycling system is being checked out in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The unit will be flown to the station aboard space shuttle Discovery on the STS-119 mission.

I am sure the crew will be relieved to see it. The previous urine recycling unit (URU) experienced a series of malfunctions after installation. The thought of which just leaves a bad taste in the mouth but it does demonstrate how close the partnership and bond is, between the crew inside the ISS. Cheers team!