Orbital Debris Threat for Space Sustainability and Way Forward (Review Article)

Abstract

Over the past 60 years, satellite technology has demonstrated its usefulness successfully. However, this usefulness is at stake from a future point of view, due to the well-admitted orbital/space debris threat. This article thoroughly reviews all aspects of space debris issue including causes, amount and sizes of orbital debris, potential threats, counter-strategies with their latest status and related legal issues to highlight the criticality and urgency of the problem. This review elaborates the fact that despite all the worries and threats, the efforts to confront this challenge are considerably insufficient until today. This bitter reality demands for at-least curtailing the number of future launches to ensure the long-term sustainability of space, until the improvement in debris situation. However, contradictory to this necessity, large satellite constellations have been proposed that can drastically increase the existing orbital population in coming years. This approach will certainly not help in improving the space environment in the future; instead, it can worsen the space environment situation as recent studies shows. Also, space resources (i.e. orbital slots and frequencies) are limited to accommodate many more satellite projects from commercial and government organization in the future. So, there is a serious question of how the space industry can move forward to maintain a balance in controlling the future number of the satellite while accommodating many commercial or government space entities. This article also identifies two optimized approaches as a way forward for future satellite projects that can also enhance the effectiveness of space technology in the future.

Range Sidelobe Level Reduction With a Train of Diverse LFM Pulses

“…In this context, a so-called fragmentation event where a large object (e. g. a satellite or large space debris particle) breaks down into multiple smaller debris particles, is of special interest. These debris particles, which originate from the same object, usually maintain the same orbital velocity in a close proximity from one another and pose a serious threat to active satellites [18], [19]. Thus, it is important to detect such events and accurately identify closely spaced targets of largely varying size (and thus SNR).…”

Data Rich Architecture for Future Space Applications and Computing

“…In the data acquisition process, two types of information sources are considered. These are: (1) Structured Information obtained from databases such as [1][2][3][4][5] and (2) Unstructured information from internet satellite data crawlers. The acquired data is held in a cloud computing platform and used to compute the RDSG.…”

“…The acquisition of meteorological data by satellites is important for earth observation. The use of a significant number of earth observation satellites increases the space debris risk as satellites reach their end of life [1][2][3][4]. This has necessitates the development of space debris removal technologies [5][6][7] and realizable via satellite re-entry [8][9][10].…”

Long-term orbit dynamics of decommissioned geostationary satellites

“…In the last decades, the space debris population has grown rapidly [1], creating a serious hazard for existing spacecraft and future space missions. As a result, multiple studies and proposals have appeared in the scientific literature that address the problem of space debris mitigation and removal [2][3][4][5][6]. Moreover, the International Academy Debris Committee has supplied several recommendations to space ventures and agencies to avoid the increasing deterioration of the space environment [7].…”