Dynamical Evolution of Space Debris Moving Inside and Across MEO Region.
Abstract
MEO (Medium Earth Orbit) satellites are objects with semi-major axis greater than 8000 km and lower than 35000 km. The orbit period ranges from about 2 to 24 hours. That type of orbit is home to the navigation satellites such as GPS, Glonass and Galileo. According to the European Space Agency's debris environment model, MASTER 2001, about 60000 objects larger than 1 cm can be found moving within the region. The main challenge for the removal of the debris is the lack of natural removal mechanism such as atmospheric drag. Moreover, wide spread of altitudes make tracking of the debris extremely difficult due to their small angular size. Because of these issues it is very important to study the MEO dynamical evolution with high accuracy, taking into account force model consisting of: geopotential, luni-solar effects and solar radiation pressure. Also, mean motion (like 2:1 and 5:3) and luni-solar resonance of debris that populate the MEO region should be included. Resonances strongly influence the stability of the aforementioned constellations causing long-term eccentricity growth that could lead to dangerous crossing of the other orbits which could end up in collision. In this paper we present the results of calculations of orbit predictions for short and medium time span (up to several weeks). Due to the importance of the region, high quality data are required in the modeling, therefore, much attention is given to improve the accuracy of predicted orbits with preserving relatively short computational time. The atmospheric drag is negligible at the altitudes in question which suggests that focus should be given to the solar radiation pressure depending mainly on S/M (area-to-mass) ratio.
- Publication:
-
39th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012cosp...39.1525P