[panick21_]

The actual solution is reducing cost to orbit. That reduces propellant cost.

And more importantly, just having laws that require people to deorbit sats and force them to pay for deorbit if they fail to make something deorbit.

> 2. Propulsion-less drone satellites.

Nowhere near enough thrust for this.

[dredmorbius]

Absent regulation, decreasing cost-to-orbit has the more likely consequence of increasing overall launches, satellites, and hence, orbital flotsam.

The Jevons Paradox strikes again.

[panick21_]

There already is some regulation. But I agree that companies that launch should be responsable for deorbit.

[dredmorbius]

Depending on how far costs fall, one potential problem would be an equivalent of "flags of convenience" in sea-based shipping. Small countries with little or "favourable" (e.g., short-term profits) regulatory regimes could sustain at least some launch capability. Unless there's some way of reining in that activity, I see the problem manifesting to at least some degree.

Even now, getting launch-capable countries on board with restrictions is a likely problem. The US, EU, and Japan perhaps not so much, but of Russia, China, India, Pakistan (potentially), and North Korea, rather more plausibly.

[panick21_]

True but the solution for that is to punish those companies in the domestic market of the people who signed up.

There was US company that tried to launch on an Indian vehicle not following all the regulation and they got fucked hard.

Of course countries like Russia are simply not gone follow these rules anyway.

[dredmorbius]

Most of the countries named are already under heavy sanctions, and have proved resilient against them to a large extent.

One problem with the Kessler Syndrome is that it's a runaway phenomenon, though one that evolves more slowly than most people appreciate. A few bad actors could trigger events which slowly start to seriously degrade at least low-to-mid Earth orbital ranges.

Geosynchronous orbits are possibly less susceptible as the entire orbital ring is large, though geostationary orbital space, strictly along Earth's equator, is more constrained. The Starlink approach of putting comms satellites in very low Earth orbit, which clears fairly quickly, possibly mitigates this in two ways (it makes geosync less critically necessary, and de-orbits satellites quickly). But LEO is still where higher orbits eventually decay to, and might itself be affected with time as well.

The lax regulatory problem, which invokes another underappreciated economic principle, Gresham's Law, is one that's appeared elsewhere and has proved hard to counter. I'd suggest not underestimating its possible noxious effects.

[spartanatreyu]

> > 2. Propulsion-less drone satellites.

> Nowhere near enough thrust for this.

Of course there is.

If solar sail probes can change their orbits over time (which they can), then they already have enough thrust. There's no static friction to overcome, so there isn't a minimum thrust that you need to reach.

As long as you can continue to apply thrust over time, then you have a solution. It doesn't matter if it takes 6 hours, 6 weeks or 6 months. Even a single probe moving the right piece of debris prevents tens of thousands of more pieces being generated. Imagine what three of them could do, or twenty...

[etrautmann]

Like a space superfund cleanup?