GEO objects spatial density and collision probability in the Earth-centered Earth-fixed (ECEF) coordinate system

Abstract

The geostationary (GEO) ring is a valuable orbital region contaminated with an alarming number of space debris. Due to its particular orbital characters, the GEO objects spatial distribution is very susceptible to local longitude regions. Therefore the local longitude distribution of these objects in the Earth-centered Earth-fixed (ECEF) coordinate system is much more stable and useful in practical applications than it is in the J2000 inertial coordinate system. In previous studies of space debris environment models, the spatial density is calculated in the J2000 coordinate system, which makes it impossible to identify the spatial distribution in different local longitude regions. For GEO objects, this may bring potent inaccuracy. In order to describe the GEO objects spatial distribution in different local longitude regions, this paper introduced a new method which can provide the spatial density distribution in the ECEF coordinate system. Based on 2014/12/10 two line element (TLE) data provided by the US Space Surveillance Network, the spatial density of cataloged GEO objects are given in the ECEF coordinate system. Combined with the previous studies of “Cube” collision probability evaluation, the GEO region collision probability in the ECEF coordinate system is also given here. The examination reveals that GEO space debris distribution is not uniform by longitude; it is relatively centered about the geopotential wells. The method given in this paper is also suitable for smaller debris in the GEO region. Currently the longitudinal-dependent analysis is not represented in GEO debris models such as ORDEM or MASTER. Based our method the further version of space debris environment engineering model (SDEEM) developed by China will present a longitudinal independent GEO space debris environment description in the ECEF coordinate system.