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End-of-Life Disposal Concepts for Lagrange-Points and HEO Missions

Programme
Discovery
Programme Reference
12-602
Contractor
Start Date
End Date
Country
Italy
End-of-Life Disposal Concepts for Lagrange-Points and HEO Missions
Description

The awareness of the risk of uncontrolled accumulation of man-­‐made objects became significant in the late 70's and since then, a number of space debris mitigation guidelines have been published by various organizations. The general aim is to reduce the growth of space debris by ensuring that space systems are designed, operated, and disposed in a manner that prevents them from generating debris throughout their lifetime, assuring the sustainable space utilization. In particular, by recognizing their unique nature, two protected regions have been defined for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). The fulfillment of such requirements must be accounted for in the management of current and future Lagrangian Points Orbit (LPO) and Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) missions. In fact, spacecraft in these orbital regimes might interfere with LEO and GEO protected regions or crash in the Earth's surface with inadmissible casualt area, as well as collide with other spacecraft in MEO (Medium Earth Orbit), HEO and LPO.

Executive summary