Space debris ? The short term orbital evolution in the earth gravity field

The number of space debris has increased in the orbital environment and consequently, the risk of collision between satellites and space debris or space debris and space debris has become a hot topic in Celestial Mechanics. Unfortunately, just a small fraction of the biggest and brightest objects are visible by means of radar and optical telescopes. In the last years, many efforts have been made to simulate the creation of space debris populations through different models, which use different sources and diverse orbital propagators, to study how they evolve in the near future. Modellizing a fragmentation event is rather complex, furthermore large uncertainties appear in the number of created fragments, the ejection directions and velocities. In this paper, we propose an innovative way to create a synthetic population of space debris from simulated data, which are constrained by observational data, plus an Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) method to adjust the simulated population by statistical means. The final purpose consists in improving a synthetic population of space debris created with a space debris model helped by an additional data set which allows to converge towards a new synthetic population whose global statistical properties are more satisfying.

show abstract

Space debris removal by ground-based lasers: main conclusions of the European project CLEANSPACE

Esmiller

Jacquelard²,

Eckel

et al. 2014

Appl. Opt.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies show that the number of debris in low Earth orbit is exponentially growing despite future debris release mitigation measures considered. Specifically, the already existing population of small and medium debris (between 1 cm and several dozens of cm) is today a concrete threat to operational satellites. A ground-based laser solution which can remove, at low expense and in a nondestructive way, hazardous debris around selected space assets appears as a highly promising answer. This solution is studied within the framework of the CLEANSPACE project which is part of the FP7 space program. The overall CLEANSPACE objective is: to propose an efficient and affordable global system architecture, to tackle safety regulation aspects, political implications and future collaborations, to develop affordable technological bricks, and to establish a roadmap for the development and the future implantation of a fully functional laser protection system. This paper will present the main conclusions of the CLEANSPACE project.

show abstract

Space debris ? The short term orbital evolution in the earth gravity field

Cited by 3 publications

References 11 publications

Space debris removal by ground based laser Main conclusions of the European project CLEANSPACE

Space debris removal by ground based laser Main conclusions of the European project CLEANSPACE

Creation of a synthetic population of space debris to reduce discrepancies between simulation and observations

Space debris removal by ground-based lasers: main conclusions of the European project CLEANSPACE

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About