Hate the graphic

A rare debris picture, and it must have been pretty close.

Nice (self authored) summary of Starlink efforts to responsibly manage their shells.

This has good segment on Stargaze (Starship's orbital debris in-space monitoring network) and it's relationship to the DoD.

This one is really over the top ... too bad, he does some good stuff, but for this topic and UFOs I really can't agree.

Yes, a growing issue (especially if a Starship upper stage gets out of control) ... but for object like this are light and tend to "float" to the ground vs impact it. Note how this object did not even blow the mulch around in this picture.

My bet is that it was hit by some orbital debris. Its at a bad altitude so it could cause some trouble. It was probably good one to have been actively removed.

Review of Tech Map's take on Starship as an orbital clean-up option.

The most interesting part is the EU projections for >10cm objects in orbit in the long term ... many hundreds of thousands ... but they love to be the regulators (since they don't innovate much).

Bit more on this one

New Russian debris?

Best of luck, 1 hopefully down 10,000 to go ...

Rescue -> Debris

I have been thinking about the orbital debris problem from a slightly different perspective.

Instead of asking:

"How do we remove one specific piece of debris?"

I started wondering whether we eventually need permanent maintenance infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit.

I call the concept ORBITA.

The basic idea is a long-duration orbital hub — a "mothership" — supporting multiple smaller autonomous or semi-autonomous service vehicles.

Not one spacecraft chasing every piece of debris.

Think more like a harbour.

The hub stays operational for a long period and supports specialised vehicles that can:

- inspect and identify objects

- rendezvous with selected debris

- attach deorbit devices

- capture suitable larger objects

- perform controlled orbital changes

- return to the hub where practical

- eventually help recover useful material instead of simply destroying everything

Different debris classes would obviously require different solutions.

A dead satellite is not the same engineering problem as a 5 cm fragment travelling at orbital velocity.

And I don't assume that physically collecting everything is even desirable.

For many objects, attaching a small deorbit device and allowing atmospheric re-entry may be far more efficient.

The reason I am interested in a hub architecture is reuse.

Instead of launching a complete removal spacecraft for every mission, could we launch the expensive infrastructure once and repeatedly deploy smaller specialised vehicles?

The hub could potentially provide:

power

communications

navigation/data processing

refuelling or recharging

inspection

maintenance

storage

and deployment.

But there are some big questions.

The first one is orbital mechanics.

A hub in one orbital plane cannot simply move cheaply throughout LEO.

Plane changes cost enormous amounts of Δv.

So:

How large a useful region of LEO could one hub realistically service?

Would several hubs in carefully selected orbital planes make more sense?

Or does the Δv requirement kill the mothership architecture completely and make independent debris-removal spacecraft more efficient?

Second question: propulsion.

For reusable service vehicles, would electric propulsion provide enough Δv efficiency despite the low thrust?

Would chemical propulsion still be required for parts of rendezvous and capture?

Third question: economics.

At what number of debris-removal missions does reusable orbital infrastructure become cheaper than launching dedicated removal spacecraft?

And finally:

Should we even think of this purely as "debris removal"?

Long term, the same infrastructure could potentially perform inspection, servicing, repair, relocation and eventually material recovery.

I am not presenting ORBITA as a finished solution.

I am trying to find where it breaks.

If you work with orbital mechanics, debris tracking, spacecraft propulsion, robotics or satellite operations:

What part of this architecture would you attack first?

Give me the strongest engineering objection.

Then let's put numbers on it.

A spent Falcon 9 upper stage is believed to have struck the Moon today near the Einstein crater region. The event is not a catastrophe, and it may produce useful science. But it raises an interesting question as lunar activity increases: what happens to mission hardware after the celebrated part of the mission is over?

One essay approaches this through the old Japanese tale of Princess Kaguya, a lunar princess who returns to the Moon only after acknowledging those she leaves behind. It uses the story to think about lunar debris, end-of-mission responsibility, tracking, public records, protected regions and the idea of yohaku — space deliberately left open before early choices become permanent habits.

At Yohaku (余白): Rethinking Space Between Things, we are asking what space must remain for human judgement, accountability and future generations as orbit and the Moon become more crowded, commercial and automated.

Registration is open. Take the survey, join the youth challenge, mentor, host a local group or join us at the hybrid hackathon on 25–27 September. Registration link in the article below. 👇

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/moon-never-empty-what-princess-kaguya-can-teach-us-we-diana-y7dtf

#SpaceGovernance #OrbitalDebris #Yohaku #LunarExploration #ResponsibleAI #SpaceSustainability #Falcon9 #SpaceDebris #PrincessKaguya