The concept of a long-term service station to increase the life duration of some satellites or to remove space debris

AbstractTwo aspects of the orbital evolution of space debris – the long-term evolution and the short-term one – are of interest for an exploration of the near- Earth space. The paper presents some results concerning the estimation of the accuracy of predicted positions of Earth-orbiting objects for the short-term: a few revolutions or a time-span interval of a few days. Calculations of predicted positions take into account the influence of an arbitrary number of spherical coefficients of the Earth gravity potential. Differences in predicted positions due to differences in the best contemporary geopotential models (JGM-2, JGM-3 and GRIM4-S4) are estimated with the use of an analytical theory of motion and a numerical integration.

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Simulation of long-term rotational dynamics of large space debris: A TOPEX/Poseidon case study

Advances in Space Research ◽

10.1016/j.asr.2019.11.021 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 65 (4) ◽

pp. 1182-1195

Author(s):

Luc B.M. Sagnières ◽

Inna Sharf ◽

Florent Deleflie

Keyword(s):

Space Debris ◽

Rotational Dynamics ◽

Large Space

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Ranking in-orbit fragmentations and space objects

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921314008011 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 9 (S310) ◽

pp. 118-125

Author(s):

Alessandro Rossi ◽

Giovanni B. Valsecchi ◽

Elisa Maria Alessi

Keyword(s):

Parametric Study ◽

Space Debris ◽

Population Based ◽

Long Term Evolution ◽

Sample Population ◽

Term Evolution ◽

Future Space ◽

Space Objects ◽

Analytic Index

AbstractThe future space debris environment will be dominated by the production of fragments coming from massive fragmentations. In order to identify the most relevant parameters influencing the long term evolution of the environment and to assess the criticality of selected space objects in different regions of the circumterrestrial space, a large parametric study was performed. In this framework some indicators were produced to quantify and rank the relevance of selected fragmentations on the long term evolution of the space debris population. Based on the results of the fragmentation studies, a novel analytic index, the Criticality of Spacecraft Index, aimed at ranking the environmental criticality of abandoned objects in LEO, has been devised and tested on a sample population of orbiting objects.

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