NASA is looking for an effective way to get rid of the amount of waste generated by long missions: will it solve the space press?



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About the space wreck is primarily referred to as the risk for satellites and the International Space Station (ISS).

Totally legitimate. More than ten years ago, about 100,000 space cluster objects, measuring more than one centimeter, were in orbit. Today, there are at least five

Ordinary waste

Extremely dangerous space debris with a diameter of ten centimeters or more is now in the orbit of more than 30,000 , and thumbnails that do not have a centimeter are dozens of millions. Garbage collisions with other objects occur most often at a speed of about 10 km / s, or 36,000 km / h.

Imagine what he can do with the shell of a space rocket to make a forgotten centimeter that flies to an astronaut during the repair of the ISS. This type of waste is tried – in terms of size – at least to locate and a number of technologies are being considered to remove it from orbit. However, it is equally important that new wastes be produced as little as possible

What about waste from the ISS

At the space station, this problem is not not bad so far, but the waste is very complicated. Simply because it unnecessarily occupies a place that it does not call and that it could certainly be used more efficiently. Not to mention that this is not just an inorganic but also organic waste that can theoretically pose a risk to the health of astronauts in a confined space. What happens to this waste on the station?

It is stored in plastic bags in the warehouse, where it can sometimes accumulate up to two tons. If that's too much, astronauts will charge it into a power module that will return to Earth or worsen with the cost of the atmosphere – depending on how reusable it is [19659003RemoteTargets

The resolution of this problem will be however, much more difficult in the case of longer space paths, such as Mars, or even further into the depth of our solar system. The National Authority for Aviation and Space (NASA) believes that the best way to deal with the problem of waste generation is to develop an efficient technology for pressing and further processing [19659005] And this is not just a public statement. The US space agency has already taken action. She approached selected US companies to try to create a prototype space press and waste recycling technology. According to the Agency, it is important that new technology can not only effectively reduce the size of waste, but at the same time effectively remove all potentially hazardous components, and ultimately separate those that can be reused in a manner or another

replenish the Earth's inventory and recycle the materials and waste will be one of the most important resources through which it can easily be added to the missing things

Possible Solutions

Several technologies come into consideration but need to be further developed. For example, NASA scientists have developed a device known as HMC (Heat Melt Compactor), able to extract water from astronauts' wastes. It is not biowaste recycling, but a technology that can be used to mold, for example, beverage cans, wet wipes, and so on.

This will not only provide vital water, but will reduce its volume about ten times. can be used repeatedly, for example, for the production of shields. Another technology also allows to produce methane from waste, which can be part of a rocket fuel. Solid wastes can be transformed into a mixture from which radiation shields can be produced

The new technology required by NASA should, however, comprehensively address the problem of waste at missions in remote parts of the world. solar system. In the first phase, NASA will evaluate the proposals, in the second, selected companies will produce a functional prototype of equipment that will be tested directly on the ISS as early as 2022.

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