Space Debris Mitigation and the Brazilian Foreign Space Policy

This article addressed the importance of adopting space debris mitigation strategies based on Brazilian government policy. Key findings pointed out that space debris is an issue with social, environmental, and economic impacts on global scale. Additionally, the Brazilian Government guarantees national security and establishes its aerospace sovereignty. Findings pointed out the relevance of space debris mitigation as a crucial government policy to address the creation of general Brazilian space law, as well as the opportunity for investments in the space sector as a whole in order to provide the training of civilians and military in the development of equipment to remedy the problem. Discussion on case implications and future research recommendations compile the present work.

Space Debris Mitigation: Some Lessons from International Environmental Law

The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I in 1957 which led to the era of space activities. Although human race has benefited numerous from space activities, unlimited use of outer space has caused pollutions in outer space and consequently at the earth environment. Space debris has become a threat to the security of space activities. Space debris is the most important of these pollutions that, not only creates numerous threats and risks for Orbiting Satellites, It also has harmful effects on earth environment. During drafting UN space treaties, little attention was paid to environmental problems and these treaties did not mentioned of space debris and its hazards. in recent decades, Ethics of Outer Space activities, paid more attention to the environment of outer space and environmental issue of space activities. Therefore, the experiences of environmental law and its preventive policies can be used to reduce the threat of space debris for peaceful space activities and the environment of space and planet Earth.

Power Generation on a Bare Electrodynamic Tether during Debris Mitigation in Space

Power generation can be realized in space when current is induced on a bare electrodynamic tether system. The performance of power generation is discussed based on a debris mitigation mission by numerical simulation in the paper. A Li-ion battery subsystem is used to complete the energy conversion—harvest and supply the energy. The battery can provide 10–300 W average electric power continuously during several hundred hour mission time. The energy conversion efficiency ranges from 1% to a maximum value 30%. With constant power consumption on board, the battery operation generally experiences a discharging phase, a charging phase, and a stable phase. The first two phases determine the mission risk coefficient. The heating problem in the stable phase cannot be ignored. The optimization of battery design and tether design should be considered for each debris mitigation mission. An extra control circuit or small battery voltage with large capacity for battery design is suggested to eliminate the stable phase. Wide or long tether designs are more appropriate for mission with high or low power demands on board, respectively. The power generation is affected by the system mass and the mission orbit parameters.