Nebula Public Library

The study takes place in the context of the space environment remediation. Tackling the issue of space debris is becoming more and more critical as it becomes more dangerous for existing and future space missions. Solutions must be found to ensure the security of space missions security and a clean space environment. Laser pressure solutions are considered promising as they only using momentum transfer to perform debris manoeuvres to avoid collisions. This means that no additional debris is generated using this technique.

The technical objective of this study is to understand the net effect of using deorbiting technologies like sails or tethers over the future debris population around the Earth. In principle, indeed, these attractive technologies will support the compliancy to post-mitigation disposal guidelines, for small missions. However, the increased cross section also increases the collision risk.

In the future, satellites will have to demonstrate compliance with debris mitigation requirements, covering re-entry or parking graveyard orbits and passivation. Nevertheless, during the mission, a failure could occur without any possibility to manoeuvre the satellite and achieving its compliance to the Space Debris Mitigation requirements. Therefore to anticipate the need to use ADR for deorbiting (or reorbiting) the satellite, it is interesting to evaluate the implication of adapting the satellites and launcher upper stage to support a future ADR mission.

The simulations of the long term evolution of the space debris population, under realistic assumptions, show how the driving factor in the future environment will be mostly the breakup of large spacecraft and rocket bodies in LEO.