DARPA’S SUMO IN SPACE

It seemed like kind of joke last October, when the Pentagon wished out loud for a space­ship that would grab enemy satel­lites, and throw them around — maybe even out of orbit. But the Defense Department is dead seri­ous, the Arms Control Wonk tells us. $35 mil­lion seri­ous.
In its pro­posed bud­get for 2006, Pentagon way-​​out research arm Darpa is ask­ing for 35 large over the next two years for its Spacecraft for the Unmanned Modification of Orbits (SUMO) pro­gram.
“SUMO com­bines detailed stereo pho­togram­met­ric imag­ing with robotic… manip­u­la­tors to autonomously grap­ple space objects,” the agency says. “SUMO offers the poten­tial for space­craft sal­vage, repair, res­cue, repo­si­tion, and debris removal to extend ser­vice life or pro­vide a safe and cal­cu­lated de-​​orbit.“
Sounds friendly enough — like a tug­boat in space, maybe. Until you stop to think that the SUMO could also grab satel­lites that don’t want to be repo­si­tioned or de-​​orbited. Suddenly, that tug­boat starts look­ing an awful lot like a wrestler’s arm, about to toss an oppo­nent out of the ring.
THERE’S MORE: Of course, since this is Darpa we’re talk­ing about here, there are a whole smor­gas­bord of wild-​​sounding space projects wait­ing to be funded. Using “x-​​ray celes­tial sources to deter­mine the three dimen­sional posi­tion… of orbit­ing space­craft,” any­one? Or how about space teth­ers, to “rapidly reme­di­ate high energy radi­a­tion par­ti­cles pro­duced by a High Altitude Nuclear Detonation?” A bunch of oth­ers are here.

March 17th, 2005 | Space | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.