Capability Assessment of the Space-Based Optical Measurement for LEO Debris

概要

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The presence of orbital debris is a potential risk for sustainable space development and its utilization for humankind. Prevention of large-scale spacecraft breakup events is a crucial part of countermeasures against orbital debris, and one of the key related technologies is the collision avoidance maneuver. Current observations are insufficient to track objects smaller than 10 cm, which are still large enough to cause catastrophic damage to primary spacecraft. The final goal of this study is to track debris 1 cm and larger in the low Earth orbit region. This paper proposes a space-based optical measurement system as a new promising solution. There are three points to be followed: 1) observation opportunity, 2) orbit determination accuracy and 3) tracking capability. As the first step, this paper focuses on assessing observation opportunity using a newly developed space-based observation simulator. This paper summarizes assessment results in terms of the number of passing objects, imaged objects, image moving velocity in pixels, apparent magnitude, observation occurrence frequency with respect to the observers true anomaly, and the relationship between the observation count and interval.
THE JAPAN SOCIETY FOR AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE SCIENCESの論文