Smarter Everyday puts out gold every video.

Found this today. Must be a really hot topic because nasa just out out this report: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/otps_-cost_and_benefit_analysis_of_orbital_debris_remediation-_final.pdf

The shielding is really just two plates slightly apart from each other. When the debris strikes the first plate it vaporizes and the second plate catches the vapor. It’s called a whipple shield. That first plate prevents back splash when it strikes the second plate. This minimizes debris going back to space.

Graveyard orbits are for geostationary satellites. That are farther out, if I remember correctly, than the standard GEO orbits. Those are premium orbits. They are tightly regulated. Unfortunately, those are way to far out to deorbit on their own. It’s something like a millennia or more before perturbations could cause it to deorbit. Going out to gather them and bring them back is a waste of current resources, hence the graveyard orbit.

If you’re looking to take some real life Aerospace knowledge into kerbal. I recommend searching for “patched conics”. This matches how kerbal models their system and will allow you to understand how they get to their dV calculations plus do slingshots in the game.

You’re in luck too, one of my favorite channels just dropped a video on space debris and debris shields here: https://youtu.be/_FFNz2q7F88

Source: https://ai-solutions.com/_freeflyeruniversityguide/patched_conics_transfer.htm

Tiny stuff is incredibly difficult to track and deorbit. There was one suggestion of using a reinforced solar sail or even aerogel to capture the tiny debris in orbit. It is incredibly difficult to go out and just say you’re going to clean up LEO of all paint chips. It is much easier to add reenforcement to your existing hardware or using debris agnostic designs.

NASA and DoD tracks everything larger than about 2 inches. If the object is greater than 4inches they plan on object avoidance maneuvers, otherwise they let ballistic shields handle anything smaller.

There are plenty of dead satellites out there in LEO that will eventually make their way back to earth from drag. All of those missions are grandfathered in to the old 25 year rule.

In real life, equatorial orbits aren’t very interesting. Most commonly satellites sit in sun synchronous orbits. This gives you the same angle of the sun to power your panels and observe the earth with the same lighting year round. It works because the earth is oblate and slightly causes the orbit to precess around the planet. Inclination is about 98 degrees.

Due to the limitations of kerbal, it’s not possible to get into that orbit. Gamers would be pretty mad if the game started taking into account orbital precession causing their orbits to change around the planet as they time warp through the year.

Source: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amse/2013/484153/

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html

Source: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/33704/distribution-of-satellites-by-inclination

Hello, aerospace engineer here. There are quite a few things being done about this. First, the FCC adopted a change in rules last year that state that object out in orbit must come down within 5 years after end of life. Previously this rule was 20-25 years which was long enough for any LEO object to deorbit on its own. 5 years is too short of a time frame for upper atmosphere drag to pull it down so satellite manufacturers have to add a deorbit thruster or pay companies to use their space tug. Space tugs sound fictional but Launcher, RocketLab, and Firefly Aerospace are just a few commercial companies building or have already flight proven the concept.

This is going to be a larger deal with the FAA approving several thousand sized constellations entering the market by the end of the decade. My personal opinion is that trackable junk isn’t really a threat as countries blowing up satellites to prove a point. That debris cloud basically locks out an entire orbit. Space is really big and there are think tanks like Aerospace Corporation that are studying this problem to help mitigate the impacts and to advise industry and government on what to do.

The reality is that space objects are only going to go up not down in the next decade. Our job as space engineers around the world is to treat these missions with respect by providing deorbit plans and alerting agencies for possible collisions of our hardware with someone else’s.

This subject is of course highly nuanced and some of these nuances I can’t fully capture here in a Reddit comment. I highly encourage checking out the aerospace link below for some more information.

Source: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-new-5-year-rule-deorbiting-satellites

Source: https://aerospace.org/cords