Related papers: System Level Analysis and Management of Orbital De…

Orbital debris is a nonlinear control problem in a stratified orbital environment, not a static inventory. This paper develops a reduced-order shell-and-size framework that connects collision-rate scaling, fragment-production gain, natural…

As orbital debris continues to become a higher priority for the space industry, there is a need to explore how partnerships between the public and private space sector may aid in addressing this issue. This research develops a space…

Orbital debris poses an escalating threat to space missions and the long-term sustainability of Earth's orbital environment. The literature proposes various approaches for orbital debris remediation, including the use of multiple…

An increasingly salient public policy challenge is how to manage the growing number of satellites in orbit, including large constellations. Many policy initiatives have been proposed that attempt to address the problem from different…

The increasing threat raised by space debris led to the development of different mathematical models and approaches to investigate the dynamics of small particles orbiting around the Earth. Such models and methods strongly depend on the…

Space debris is a major threat to the satellite infrastructure. A collision with even small particle, e.g. 1 cm of size, can cause a catastrophic event when the parent body, spacecraft or upper stage, will break up into hundreds of…

With the boost in the number of spacecraft launches in the current decades, the space debris problem is daily becoming significantly crucial. For sustainable space utilization, the continuous removal of space debris is the most severe…

Neglecting small fragments in space debris evolutionary models can lead to a significant underestimation of the collision risk for operational satellites. However, when scaling down to the millimeter range, the debris population grows to…

Launch behaviors are a key determinant of the orbital environment. Physical and economic forces such as fragmentations and changing launch costs, or policies like post-mission disposal (PMD) compliance requirements, will alter the relative…

In this work, we present a symplectic integration scheme to numerically compute space debris motion. Such an integrator is particularly suitable to obtain reliable trajectories of objects lying on high orbits, especially geostationary ones.…

This paper investigates the mission planning problem for spacecraft confronting orbital debris to achieve autonomous avoidance. Firstly, combined with the avoidance requirements, a closed-loop framework of autonomous avoidance for orbital…

The presence of debris in Earth's orbit poses a significant risk to human activity in outer space. This debris population continues to grow due to ground launches, loss of external parts from space ships, and uncontrollable collisions…

Space debris, also known as "space junk," presents a significant challenge for all space exploration activities, including those involving human-onboard spacecraft such as SpaceX's Crew Dragon and the International Space Station. The amount…

Building and maintaining a space object catalog is necessary for space situational awareness. To realize this, one great challenge is uncooperative spacecraft maneuver detection because unknown maneuver events can lead to deviated orbital…

In-Orbit Servicing and Active Debris Removal require advanced robotic capabilities for capturing and detumbling uncooperative targets. This work presents a hierarchical control framework for autonomous robotic capture of tumbling objects in…

Orbital debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are now sufficiently dense that the use of LEO space is threatened by runaway collisional cascading. A problem predicted more than thirty years ago, the threat from debris larger than about 1 cm…

Approaching a tumbling target safely is a critical challenge in space debris removal missions utilizing robotic manipulators onboard servicing satellites. In this work, we propose a trajectory planning method based on nonlinear optimization…

The objective of this paper is to provide a pedagogical framework for the phenomenon of orbital decay of satellites in low Earth orbit. The dynamics of orbital decay are derived considering atmospheric drag as the only dissipative mechanism…

The escalating accumulation of orbital debris threatens the sustainability of space operations, necessitating active removal solutions that overcome the limitations of current fuel-dependent methods. To address this, this study introduces a…

The space environment around the Earth is populated by more than 130 million objects of 1 mm in size and larger, and future predictions shows that this amount is destined to increase, even if mitigation measures are implemented at a far…