Debris Environment Research Articles

Contribution of explosion and future collision fragments to the orbital debris environment

The time evolution of the near-Earth man-made orbital debris environment modeled by numerical simulation is presented in this paper. The model starts with a data base of orbital debris objects which are tracked by the NORAD ground radar system. The current untrackable small objects are assumed to result from explosions and are predicted from data collected from a ground explosion experiment. Future collisions between Earth orbiting objects are handled by the Monte Carlo method to simulate the range of collision possibilities that may occur in the real world. The collision fragmentation process between debris objects is calculated using an empirical formula derived from a laboratory spacecraft impact experiment to obtain the number versus size distribution of the newly generated debris population. The evolution of the future space debris environment is compared with the natural meteoroid background for the relative spacecraft penetration hazard.

A model for the evolution of the on-orbit man-made debris environment

A model for the evolution of the low Earth orbit man-made debris population is presented and the results of several test cases discussed. Debris sources include normal operations in space, explosions occurring on spacecraft in orbit, and collisions between objects in orbit; the stochastic occurrence of these deposition events is modeled using Monte Carlo techniques. A technique for discriminating between objects populating long-life vs rapid-decay orbits is discussed and applied to the analysis of debris contributions from collisions of comparable sized objects. In varying degrees, each of the cases presented indicate there is cause for concern for spacecraft and space operations from the 1990s onward-man-made debris will play a role which may vary from presenting a considerable hazard to certain operations or certain spacecraft to effectively prohibiting the use of certain spaceccraft or space operations.