What are the most important issues we have now in the space exploration area? As we can see now space explorations are developing very rapidly and doing this, it causes a lot of issues to solve. Humans have a lot of stuff to figure out to get closer to a particular purpose and which one do you consider is the most important and must be solved the first?
Getting out of Earth's low orbit.
@pinback
I wanna say that speca junk became a real issue for many space companies all around the globe. The big number of space junk can damage expensive spacecrafts The growing number of space items can lead to the state where he object density is so high that one collision is enough to generate a cascade effect, leading to further collisions.
That is why, it`is rather important to invest money in some technology that can clean the Earth's orbit from space junk in order to make space mission safe. For instance, micro tug. One of the main mission of this tech is to de-orbiting space debris or transferring space debris to disposal orbit. It means that micro tug sends dead sats and other kinds of space junk to the atmosphere of Earth where it burns down
https://www.skyrora.com/space-tug
Besides dealing with space junk, micro tug refuel satellites and spacecrafts, corrects satellites and spacecrafts orbit, deploys payloads into different orbits and altitudes and so on...
My view:
1. Space junk, which is the issue for the Earth ecology as well as the space exploration and observation. It tells us some promising steps of high-level collaboration.
2. Effectiveness for Mars and the Moon exploration and at least exploration stations there for a short term human presence.
3. Asteroids collision monitoring and prevention. Detection has a lot of potential to move forward. In this case 1, 2 and 4 also count.
4. Effectiveness of near-earth orbit exploitation (e. g. surveillance, internet provision to far places), inter-satellite coordination (e. g., Machine Learning implementation.
One more, key issue for our capabilities.
How far and how fast?
This is an 'umbrella' of what is being done about fuel, mass, robots.
There is a certain technological limits (mass, acceleration), which makes exploration, colonization, extraterrestrial stations coming slow (besides all the visible rush of launches).
I would agree with our tech being held back..... in the past least in the USA the govt ran space exercises which I think slowed our progress in space. If you let the private sector monetize space like what some of these billionaires are doing that will do nothing but accelerate technology and spreading it the people. Elon said that SpaceX will be able to bring 50-100 people to the moon on regular trips within 10yrs and he wants to bring people to Mars by 2050.... that could be a bit more challenging because that trip takes a while, while the moon is a much shorter trip.
I just want to see WHO will have the first spacestation on the moon? 🙂
I would also say space junk would be an issue.... dying satellites just chillin in low orbit spinning around the earth ... surprised we don't hear about collisions there has to be hundreds of satellites up there.
Right, thank you.
We are already there with 22,000 pieces of junk flying over our planet. As far as I know, there was never anything done on that. This is only a visible part of the iceberg.
‘surprised we don't hear about collisions there has to be hundreds of satellites up there’ - there are too much to be tracked and reported, just ‘the brightest ones’, I assume.
The first steps may seem bizarre. ESA announced robot-junk-remover test launch till 2025. Would this announcement bring activity increase in this field. Overcoming steps should also be a regular process.
'I just want to see WHO will have the first spacestation on the moon?' - also right to the point. Only technology part seems to make forecasts, not to mention regulations.
The first steps may seem bizarre. ESA announced robot-junk-remover test launch till 2025. Would this announcement bring activity increase in this field. Overcoming steps should also be a regular process.
Aurora Propulsion Technologies will be sending up space junk removal tech on Rocket Lab’s Electron later this year.
Indeed, going to private also?
This would have to sponsored personally I don't see the money making opportunity of cleaning up all the junk. Unless they grind it down in space like a flying wood chipper 😉 I just don't see much value in bringing the stuff back to earth.... especially the cost it takes to put things in space. Maybe they could collect it all and bring it too the moon and refactor the metals to use to build things on the moon.
Musk made an interesting solution how not to increase the number of space junk with dead satellites. Starlink satellites will have a special self disposal feature in order not to increase the number of spce debris. To clarify it, these satellites will be able to lead themself to the atmosphere of Earth where they can just burn down.
Having 20k+ junk pieces already on the orbit for all the time, it looks inevitable as a result of Starlink, sending 15k and preparing twice more.
There must be mitigation points behind (presumably):
- Where the collision numbers become critical to hold on new launches.
- Automatic manoeuvring systems continuous calibration.
- Emergency actions for the critical collisions that might happen.
When the goal is set and approved, permission is there.
Space junk is the hazard problem that has been there for decades, and nowadays with the space exploration boost we try to surpass it.
Inevitable, but still vague with effectiveness of resource usage.
AI as data collecting and processing (particularly using Data Science and Machine Learning) is a leap for the effectiveness in space exploration and the Earth surveillance and decision proposal and hot spotting. Though the decision action is on engineers and scientists' minds for large scales. The beneficial part of AI in space as in any industry, that it can operate in hazardous environments for humans.
For the surveillance part, ML is the best adopted, as it is already able to use a huge amount of data to ‘train’ the facilities that perform data collection and visual recognition. In this niche it is successfully dealing with smart processing. It’s been used to estimate heat storage in urban areas and to combine meteorological data with satellite imagery for wind speed estimation. AI has also helped with solar radiation estimation using geostationary satellite data, among many other applications.
1. There is a big potential for AI in the satellites control area to be usedeffectively: new launches manoeuvring, coordinating satellites constellations.
2. Cooperation between all institutions involved.
Sorry, I cannot stop myself, while new ideas coming for this subject.
The most important issue that must be solved in space exploration is the development of sustainable, reliable, and affordable access to space. This includes the development of new launch systems, the development of new propulsion systems, and the development of new technologies to reduce the cost of space exploration. Additionally, the development of new methods for in-space resource utilization and the development of new methods for in-space manufacturing are also important issues that must be solved. Finally, the development of new methods for long-term human habitation in space is also an important issue that must be solved.