Comment by resters
19 hours ago
Positioning a large, armored satellite in low or mid-Earth orbit significantly enhances its strategic value for both offensive and defensive anti-satellite operations. Such a platform could serve as a pivotal asset in maintaining orbital dominance, offering rapid response capabilities to neutralize threats and protect critical infrastructure.
In other words, welcome various "death stars" to keep order against malicious Kessler style attacks, etc.
"armored"
I don't get the impression that you've looked at the physics of orbits.
Everything up there carries tremendous kinetic energy.
It would be pretty hard to build something strong enough to take on intentional collisions, let alone large debris.
Fun reading: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_Debris/Hypervelocity_...
Here's a picture to illustrate: https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/im...
Those are interesting resources! I meant armored in more of a figurative sense, as in "prepared to defend itself against offensive collisions".
That helps nothing on the civilian side. Blowing up a sat will do nothing but raise long term risk.
Some sort of platform that can launch 'space drones' to deorbit a dead satellite before it crashes or if something else would happened to cause a collision, that could be useful, but, probably expensive.
What do you assume happens to a "neutralized threat" in terms of space junk?
Perhaps it is recycled aboard the large armored satellite or propelled into the Earth's atmosphere so it can burn up.