Modeling of the Future Space Debris Environment

Abstract

In Chapters 3 and 4 the historic evolution of the space debris environment up to the present was developed. All deployment and release events were largely considered as deterministically known, with traceable release epochs, release types, and release orbits. When trying to forecast the future evolution of the space debris environment, this deterministic knowledge base needs to be replaced by a statistical model of deployment and release events, based on a thorough analysis of past activities and recent trends. The current chapter will explain corresponding “traffic models” and their effect on the long-term evolution of the space debris environment in the case of unchanged operational practices (a so-called “business-asusual” scenario). The expression “long-term” in this context refers to forecasting timespans of up to 100 years. Traffic models, prediction methods, and resulting trends, which are discussed hereafter refer to the DELTA 2.0 software (Debris Environment Long-Term Analysis (Walker et al., 2000)).