"Worker Bee One, its name is Worker Bee One."

Oh, it's the space tripod...... Phew, who gave the nickname, are the three thrusters three jumpers?

Add the word "space" and it's taller?

Tang Chao was about to scold on the spot the moment he saw the barrage, but he thought that the impact was not good.

I'm a public figure.

Just put up with it.

Its name is "Worker Bee No. 1", and it is an orbital engineering spacecraft, which is specially engaged in the salvage, towing, and temporary rescue of orbital facilities.

The other spacecraft is called "Worker Bee II", which is an orbital maneuvering facility in the industrial area.

At present, there are only two of them, but they belong to the "worker bee class" orbiter, which is a small orbiter specially designed for work, and their number will increase accordingly when there are more large space facilities in the future.

Sitting in the command seat, Tang Chao asked the technician: "How is the status of Worker Bee No. 1?" ”

"No problem at all, Mr. Tang, you can start the task at any time." The technician looked at Tang Chao and said.

"Let's get started, let's actually test out what it can do."

Tang Chao said as he spoke, suddenly paused, then patted the table lightly and said, "By the way, I also want to notify the space agency, saying that our mission is about to start, let them pay attention." ”

"Okay, I'll let you know."

The space agency Tang Chao said is of course Tianxia's space agency, and as for why they want to notify that side, it is of course because they want to engage in Tianxia's satellite on this experimental mission.

Scrapped satellites, of course.

Worker Bee 1 is an engineering spacecraft, and there is salvage and towing in the function, and the latest module launched is a maintenance module, and maintenance must do something that needs to be repaired.

It's a pity that the time for the development of the Navigator is still short, and the launched satellites are still very "young", not only young, but also in good health, and there is nothing wrong with it.

Spicy and healthy satellites, you can't just drag them over and repair them just to show the ability of the maintenance module, right?

Of course not.

So the Navigator has to get a broken satellite to test and then repair it.

He has cooperated with Tianxia officials so many times, and it has been half a century since the Tianxia Space Agency launched Tianxia's first satellite.

For half a century? Tianxia has launched a lot of satellites? Decades have passed, and there are definitely scrapped satellites.

Like the goal this time? A scrapped communications satellite in low-earth orbit.

In fact, it is not completely scrapped? It's just running out of fuel and can't keep it on track any longer? But its solar panels and communication system are fine, and they are still carrying out their tasks steadily.

But this task won't last long? A few more moments? It would re-enter the atmosphere completely and then burn up.

So in fact, it is not completely scrapped, but it has also been moved out of the mission sequence, and the backup stars that replaced it have been in the sky for several months? It's fitting to experiment with him.

In the tradition of the Navigators? This mission was also broadcast live, which is why he didn't want to grab a scrapped satellite casually, but officially found the Tianxia Space Agency.

Viewers watching the live broadcast found that the three thrusters of the three jumpers were ignited and began to shift the track, and they understood that the planned mission was about to begin? They all watched intently.

According to the mission description, this is definitely the first time that mankind has made space salvage, orbital maneuvering, pressurized cabin overhaul and hardware upgrade.

What if the project that started with repairs can be carried out? It will also be the first time that a scrapped satellite will be repaired and upgraded and refueled in an orbital pressurized maintenance module.

Humans have done space maintenance before? Fix a space station, fix a telescope, or something, but fix a scrapped thing? Do you want to move up a notch? For the first time.

And with the flight of Worker Bee 1? Everyone saw things they wouldn't normally see.

Space junk!

Everyday sights of space junk are in science fiction movies or in NASA's public intelligence.

It's just that in science fiction movies, everyone knows it's fake.

Although NASA's public information is true, the way the space junk is displayed is data, or some small highlights, except for the name, people don't know that it is space junk at all.

If you're not even a professional, you won't see anything from the name.

The main thing is that NASA's space junk tracking system is done by ground radar stations, and the things they get are, of course, data, although there are all kinds of optical observation satellites in space, but those things are to look at the ground, how can there be time to see those space junk that is "next to them", or even "overhead".

And whether you can see it or not is another matter.

Now it's different, now Worker Bee 1 is heading towards space junk, taking pictures of everything clearly.

As the Worker Bee No. 1 flew along, it spotted a bright light, and when it flew closer, it was found that it was a pile of spacecraft debris, and there was a big guy in the debris, which seemed to be the upper stage of a rocket.

And that pile of spacecraft debris should not be the stuff of this rocket, it looks more like it belongs to a certain satellite.

These two things are mixed together, and I don't know if the upper stage of this rocket smashed the sad satellite, or if the two just floated together.

So far, thousands of artificial satellites are orbiting the Earth at different altitudes above the Earth.

However, these are only the numbers that are in normal orbit, and if you count the satellites that have been scrapped, the number is much higher.

These scrapped satellites, combined with some messy "space junk", can pose a huge threat to functioning satellites.

The issue of dodging garbage is one of the key issues in modern rocket launches, which requires a series of studies and analyses before finalizing a plan, as it directly affects the safety and integrity of the rocket launched and its payload.

In the early days of space exploration, scientists and space engineers didn't think much about the distant future of the satellites they launched, and they didn't worry about what would happen to rockets and satellites that went into space when they were scrapped, as long as they could get into space.

Today, however, there is a huge accumulation of space junk in Earth's orbit, and even a small collision between two objects can trigger a chain reaction or even catastrophic consequences – just like in the movie "Gravity".

Just like machines, artificial satellites have a definite lifespan, but unlike machines on Earth, artificial satellites operate in space, which means that humans cannot dispose of those obsolete satellites in a short period of time.

So, what happens to scrapped satellites?

There are two simple and crude methods.

The first is to reduce the speed of a malfunctioning satellite so that it falls back to Earth, where it burns up in the atmosphere during re-entry.

The second is to push the obsolete satellite to a higher orbit so that it will continue to orbit the Earth for hundreds of years, away from normal satellites.

Artificial satellites are located at different orbital altitudes depending on their purpose, some are very low, only a few hundred kilometers above the ground, such as the International Space Station.

And some satellites have high orbits, tens of thousands of kilometers above the ground, such as geosynchronous satellites.

The method of disposing of end-of-life satellites largely depends on how far away they are from Earth.

The first is to solve it in a short period of time, directly let the earth's atmosphere burn up, and the latter is to leave it to future generations, at least a few hundred years after pushing the orbit high, and after a century or two, it will be more developed so that human science and technology can always solve it.

Well, people who believe in the future, they will definitely be able to solve these things.

Hey.