Orbital debris environment and the collision hazard to spacecraft
Abstract
The man-made orbiting debris and its continuous growth is causing a serious concern to manned and unmanned space missions. This paper emphasizes the mathematical model developed for evolving the environment in the absence of a catalogue containing the complete information of debris. The model developed thus has been used for generating the untrackable debris environment also. Additionally, in this paper, the Clohessey-Wiltshire linearized equations are used to study the evolution of debris cloud resulting from an explosion. Finally, the collision probability is assessed for an active spacecraft with man-made space debris. The study indicates that the collision risk is high at 800, 1000 and 1500 km altitude. With the expected doubling of space debris population by the year 2010, the hazard to large active spacecraft will increase further.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Spacecraft Technology
- Pub Date:
- August 1991
- Bibcode:
- 1991JSpT....1...46G
- Keywords:
-
- Space Debris;
- Spacecraft Survivability;
- Explosions;
- Linearization;
- Astronautics (General)