Small debris fragments contribution to collision probability for spacecraft in Low Earth Orbits
Small debris fragments contribution to collision probability for spacecraft in Low Earth Orbits
Around the Earth there are more than ten million objects larger than 1 mm that can interfere with other orbiting spacecraft. In particular, objects larger than 1 cm are considered massive enough to seriously damage or even destroy a satellite in case of collision. The traditional piece-by-piece approach to study the evolution of debris objects cannot be applied to small fragments their number is so large that the computational time would be prohibitive. This work proposes an alternative method based on the computation of the fragment density, whose evolution in time under the effect of atmospheric drag can be obtained with the continuity equation. The fragment density can then be used to evaluate the resulting collision probability. In particular, the proposed method is here applied to evaluate the consequence of some reference breakups on a list of target objects. In addition, the low computational time allows simulating many collision scenarios with different collision conditions to understand which parameters have the largest effect on the risk for other spacecraft.
Letizia, Francesca
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Colombo, Camilla
595ced96-9494-40f2-9763-ad4a0f96bc86
Lewis, Hugh G.
e9048cd8-c188-49cb-8e2a-45f6b316336a
22 October 2014
Letizia, Francesca
5f9f7e3f-0bf0-4731-9660-2d025def8392
Colombo, Camilla
595ced96-9494-40f2-9763-ad4a0f96bc86
Lewis, Hugh G.
e9048cd8-c188-49cb-8e2a-45f6b316336a
Letizia, Francesca, Colombo, Camilla and Lewis, Hugh G.
(2014)
Small debris fragments contribution to collision probability for spacecraft in Low Earth Orbits.
7th IAASS Conference, Friedrichshafen, Germany.
20 - 22 Oct 2014.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Other)
Abstract
Around the Earth there are more than ten million objects larger than 1 mm that can interfere with other orbiting spacecraft. In particular, objects larger than 1 cm are considered massive enough to seriously damage or even destroy a satellite in case of collision. The traditional piece-by-piece approach to study the evolution of debris objects cannot be applied to small fragments their number is so large that the computational time would be prohibitive. This work proposes an alternative method based on the computation of the fragment density, whose evolution in time under the effect of atmospheric drag can be obtained with the continuity equation. The fragment density can then be used to evaluate the resulting collision probability. In particular, the proposed method is here applied to evaluate the consequence of some reference breakups on a list of target objects. In addition, the low computational time allows simulating many collision scenarios with different collision conditions to understand which parameters have the largest effect on the risk for other spacecraft.
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Letizia_iaass.pdf
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Published date: 22 October 2014
Venue - Dates:
7th IAASS Conference, Friedrichshafen, Germany, 2014-10-20 - 2014-10-22
Organisations:
Aeronautics, Astronautics & Comp. Eng, Astronautics Group, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 373671
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/373671
PURE UUID: f746e87e-51d9-4b65-8114-617582b7ffd1
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Date deposited: 27 Jan 2015 16:17
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:54
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Contributors
Author:
Francesca Letizia
Author:
Camilla Colombo
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