Rendezvous and proximity operations design of an active debris removal service to a large constellation fleet

Abstract

This work presents the design of rendezvous and close proximity operations for an active debris removal service for maintenance and disposal of a large constellation fleet. The design drivers of the service are safety and robustness of the operations, capability to remove a satellite under every condition, and high level of autonomy to reduce the service-related operations’ cost. Accordingly, the most challenging case of a rendezvous with a uncooperative non-collaborative target satellite is considered and a strategy to reduce its rotational motion is also presented. As for the rendezvous, the focus is on the relative trajectory design. First a guidance solution capable to maximise the observability property of the angles-only relative navigation problem is developed. Second, a set of convenient relative trajectories to enable target inspection for various illumination conditions is selected and an approach to ensure safe transitions among them is settled. Both these designed strategies can be readily implemented on autonomous spaceborne systems. Simulations are run for two constellation fleets, differing in mass of the single s/c and orbit’s altitude and inclination.