Nebula Public Library

The knowledge bank of ESA’s R&D programmes

End of Life operations for disposal of mega‐constellations

Programme
Discovery
Programme Reference
15/052
Start Date
End Date
Status
Closed
Country
Germany
End of Life operations for disposal of mega‐constellations
Description

The objective of this activity was to understand the operational complexity of large mega-constellation systems, and the potential needs to operate these, including the complexity of collision avoidance manoeuvres (CAMs). This objective was achieved by:

  • Assessing different end-of-life strategies for mega-constellations of the size and complexity as foreseen for the future telecommunications applications.
  • Analysing the implications on space and ground segment design to support execution of end-of-life activities for each of the strategies identified (from the previous bullet), comparing the different ground and spacecraft conceptual architectures.
  • Analysing the execution of both debris and inter-satellite CAMs during LEOP, orbit raising, routine phases and orbit lowering for mega-constellations.
  • Deriving system and operational requirements on mega-constellations for end-of-life activities and space debris mitigation.
  • Establishing a baseline scenario for an operational concept to handle space debris mitigation for mega-constellations.
Technology Domain
Executive summary
Final presentation