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Comment by AstroJetson | Hacker News Reader

Cool a mini space shuttle that is still flying around for testing stuff. Any chance it has seats and can be used for rescues?

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Or to send a brave crew to an asteroid to deflect it from a calamitous earthbound trajectory?

Wait for Dream Chaser, first unmanned orbital flight planned for 2020. That one looks more promising, at least it's bigger and originally planned to be used manned.

There's also SpaceX's Dragon 2 and Boeing's Starliner coming soon.

Dream Chaser is way closer to this space plane in features, I think.

That's what the plan was (is maybe?) for the X-37C variant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#X-37C

to rescue what exactly?

Presumably ISS? Seems unlikely US government would expose a military asset to the Russians willingly like that.

Also life support systems are heavy and that will cut into the delta-v budget of the craft.

I don't think the main mystery and classification is about the craft itself but about the cargoes and missions it takes. It probably could be outfitted to act as a rescue craft for 1-2 astronauts though in a pinch all you really need is a way to strap the astronauts in and the pack from their space suits for some short term life support (or maybe even just a CO2 scrubber pack and an oxygen bottle if the interior is already thermally managed enough for the astronaut to survive) being much smaller than the shuttle it can land at more places so they wouldn't have to be in the craft long.

People in the International Space Station?

They have Soyuz capsules that do exactly that

Chinese or Russian satellite “rescuer”.

Well, the Russians are also doing some shady stuff... They call it the Sputnik Inspektor.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/kosmos-2519.htm

I won't be surprised if a military satellite of any state capable of launching military satellites will self-destruct if taken away forcibly from the designated orbit. A simple acceleration test would suffice.

I also won't be surprised if when self-destructing, such satellite will try to deliberately damage everything in its close vicinity.

I don’t think they make boobytrapped satellites that explode, but they may remotely activate a self-destruct process which renders abduction pointless.

If they exploded it wouldn’t it create more problems than it solves in terms of more flying debris they have to track as well as friendlies in the same orbital path? (Like when Iridium 33 crashed into a defunct soviet satellite.)

I also don’t think the attack would involve changing orbits. The attack would be inserting electronic backdoor etc.

Nah. Bolt cutters on an arm, or even just spray paint. You don’t need to be close to do an electronic attack. If you’re close, you might as well hit it with a hammer or snip the antenna and solar arrays off.

This kind of sudden malfunction, along with acceleration not due to firing of any engines, would be a signal for the self-destruction device, likely chemically powered (explosive) and mechanically actuated. It would be sure to shatter the interesting electronic parts, burning or detonating any remaining fuel for bonus points.

I would be very surprised if any orbiting spacecraft built today, or currently being planned has any sort of self destruct. We're talking about capabilities that are still theoretical, albeit pretty plausible and feasible.

Anyway, who cares if the self destruct goes off? You're breaking the satellite anyway, and if you were really concerned, about attacker survivability, just launch a gun on board, like Salyut 3.

Indeed; there are many cheaper ways to destroy a satellite, and (IDK if cheaper) air-to-space anti-sat missiles are in service for decades.

I suspect the arguments about how much launch mass to devote to self destruct explosive and mechanism - compared to useful payload or manoeuvring propellant - would be interesting to see...

I suppose your self-destruct mechanism could be "aim retrograde and burn all remaining propellant". Might not turn out well for a spaceplane that latched onto such satellite.

You need an ounce or two of HE, strategically placed, to destroy the sensitive parts with confidence. Nobody needs to shatter the entire satellite to pieces.

mems accel gyro on the sat to detect when an exterior craft docs, rig up some airbags to propel shrapnel / acid / thermite in all directions when it triggers.

Cheap satellite does asymmetrical damage to space plane.

Backdoor? Hmm, I wonder how useful it would be when everything is encrypted to the brim.

It could report the orientation and thus e.g. the telescope direction. But this can be done remotely, too, with a large enough telescope, maybe on the same orbit.

That could be jammed.

"Liberator"

Hold still while I freedom you!

Could you please review the site guidelines and not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We ban accounts that repeatedly do that because we're trying for a bit better than internet default here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry - I did not mean to contribute to BS drive-by comments. I will refrain from doing so in the future.

Apologies.

Exactly!

our dreams

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