Space capacity allocation for the sustainability of space activities

Europe/Rome
Politecnico di Milano

Politecnico di Milano

Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133 Milano MI, Italy
Camilla Colombo (Politecnico di Milano), Andrea Muciaccia (Politecnico di Milano), Lorenzo Giudici (Politecnico di Milano), Alessandro Rossi (IFAC-CNR), Francesca Letizia (European Space Agency), Stijn Lemmens (European Space Agency)
Description

Workshop topics and outcome

Space, as any other ecosystem, has a finite capacity. The continuous growth of space activities, due to our increasing reliance on services from Space, the privatisation of the space market and the lower cost of deploying smaller and distributed missions in orbit, is from one side improving human-life quality and, however, it is also contributing to overloading this delicate system. International discussion is ongoing at the Inter Agency Debris Coordination Committee and at COPUOS on how to measure the overall capacity of the space environment and assess the impact that individual missions have on it.

The “Space capacity allocation for the sustainability of space activities” workshop will be held in Politecnico di Milano (Italy) on 6-8 June 2023, in Piazza Leonardo Campus.

The workshop is organised by Politecnico di Milano, the European Space Agency Space and the Italian Centre of Research (CNR). The workshop is sponsored by the GREEN SPECIES project funded by the European Research Council lead by Politecnico di Milano and co-sponsored by Secure World Foundation.

This workshop is open to all researchers, space operators and regulators working in the space debris field. The aim is not only to present current advances in research on space capacity modelling and management, but above all to offer a constructive and interdisciplinary framework to discuss and work collaboratively to advance the discussion on space sustainability and space capacity management.

In this view, the following topics will be addressed and discussed during the workshop:

  • Modelling the long-term evolution of the space debris environment,
  • Defining indices to assess the impact of missions to the space environment,
  • Measuring and defining thresholds for the overall space carrying capacity,
  • Proposals to manage the space environment on the long-term,
  • Policy and economic studies on space debris mitigations and applicability of capacity management strategies.

As outcome of the workshop, a special issue of a journal might be initiated with invited publications. In addition, a report and statement of the outcome to be shared with the outcome of the discussion will be prepared.

Workshop organisation

The workshop will be organised in presence with some parts in hybrid (i.e., in-person and remote) format, with presentations by participants alternating with working sessions and discussions.

For organisational aspects and to make discussions in working groups more interactive, only participants in-person may take part in them.

Some abstracts presentations will be accepted for remote, but priority will be given to in-person presentations.

Space Debris Day

On the 9th of June, Politecnico di Milano will also organise the second edition of the “Space Debris Day” for university students. If you want to prolong your stay to the 9th June and act as testimonial and presenter for this initiative, we would be very honoured!

    • 9:15 AM 9:45 AM
      General: Registration Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 9:45 AM 10:15 AM
      General: Welcome and Introduction Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 10:15 AM 11:00 AM
      Presentations session: Long-term space debris simulation and metrics Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

      • 10:15 AM
        Space debris, are we doing enough? 15m
        Speaker: Alessandro Rossi (IFAC-CNR)
      • 10:30 AM
        Impacts of Thermosphere Contraction on Debris Accumulation and Orbital Capacity 15m
        Speaker: William Parker (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT))
      • 10:45 AM
        Forecasting Resident Space Object Populations through a Calibrated Source-sink Evolutionary Model and a Machine-learning Algorithm 15m
        Speaker: Pablo Machuca (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
    • 11:00 AM 11:15 AM
      Break 15m
    • 11:15 AM 12:45 PM
      Presentations session: Long-term space debris simulation and metrics Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

      • 11:15 AM
        Assessment of the long-term effect of large constellations on the space debris environment through the Starling2.0 evolutionary model 15m

        Our society’s growing reliance on space services is on the one hand a precious resource for the space field, but on the other it is contributing to the overpopulation of some orbital regions around the Earth. Over the last ten years, the miniaturisation of space assets has played a fundamental role, massively decreasing launch costs and, thus, enhancing the privatisation of the space sector. As a result, the number of satellites launched into space every year has increased from a few tens in 2011 to nearly two thousand in 2021, with communication satellites of large constellations dominating the market. In this scenario, estimating the long-term effect of new traffic trends and constellations on the space debris environment is crucial for establishing remediation and mitigation measures that can counteract this growth.
        To this aim, this work adopts a novel long-term debris environment propagator based on the Starling2.0 model developed at Politecnico di Milano, to predict the contribution of large constellations on the evolution of the number and distribution of space debris in low-Earth orbit. The proposed space debris model classifies the objects into payload, rocket bodies, mission related objects and constellations, with each constellation treated as a separate species. This division guarantees an individual definition of the mission profile, in terms of lifetime, post-mission disposal rate, duration, and strategy, and allows to investigate the dependency of each species’ environmental impact on such control parameters. Instead, a continuum approach is adopted for the characterisation of the fragments cloud, whose density distribution over the phase space of orbital elements is propagated in time through the continuity equation. This probabilistic propagation method makes the required computational time independent of the lowest fragments size considered, allowing for the potential extension of this study to any objects dimension. Two fragments source terms are here considered: intact objects explosion and accidental fragments-intact object collision, whose resulting fragmentation debris clouds are included in the model as a feedback effect. This work will present the results of many simulation scenarios, where the input intact objects population, as well as the post-mission disposal strategy, are varied to assess the impact of large constellations, depending on these control parameters.

        Speaker: Lorenzo Giudici (Politecnico di Milano)
      • 11:30 AM
        Finding the Upper Threshold of LEO Activity That Makes Long-Term Space Operations Unsustainable 15m
        Speaker: Marlon Sorge
      • 11:45 AM
        Social benefits assessment of Earth observation missions through the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 15m
        Speaker: Marco Nugnes (Politecnico di Milano)
      • 12:00 PM
        Assessing near-Earth space sustainability using networks 15m
        Speaker: Matteo Romano (University of Namur)
      • 12:15 PM
        Studying the impact of large constellations on the space environment using a space debris metric 15m
        Speaker: Andrea Muciaccia (Politecnico di Milano)
      • 12:30 PM
        Quantifying Satellite Impacts on the Space Debris Environment using Density Distribution Metrics in Specific Orbital Angular Momentum Space 15m
        Speaker: Scott Dorrington (MIT)
    • 12:45 PM 2:00 PM
      Lunch 1h 15m
    • 2:00 PM 2:45 PM
      Presentations session: Long-term space debris simulation and metrics Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 2:45 PM 3:00 PM
      Break + Group 15m Beltrami

      Beltrami

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 3:00 PM 4:15 PM
      Working groups: Long-term space debris simulation and metrics Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 4:15 PM 4:45 PM
      Break 30m
    • 4:45 PM 5:30 PM
      Working groups: Discussion - Long-term space debris simulation and metrics Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 5:30 PM 6:00 PM
      Working groups: Wrap-up - Long-term space debris simulation and metrics Beltrami - Building 5

      Beltrami - Building 5

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 7:00 PM 10:00 PM
      Milanese dinner 3h
    • 9:00 AM 9:05 AM
      General: Introduction De Donato - Building 3

      De Donato - Building 3

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 9:05 AM 10:50 AM
      Presentations session: Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato - Building 3

      De Donato - Building 3

      Politecnico di Milano

      • 9:05 AM
        ESA’s approach to Space Environment Capacity 15m
        Speaker: Dr Francesca Letizia (European Space Agency)
      • 9:20 AM
        Modeling Empirical Orbital Capacity 15m
        Speaker: Darren McKnight (LeoLabs)
      • 9:35 AM
        How should small debris be treated in “Space capacity”? 15m
        Speaker: YUKIHITO KITAZAWA (The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA))
      • 9:50 AM
        THEMIS Space debris index for the assessment of the capacity of the overall environment 15m
        Speaker: Camilla Colombo (Politecnico di Milano)
      • 10:05 AM
        Monitoring evolution of the satellite conjunction network 15m
        Speaker: Akhil Rao (Middlebury College)
      • 10:20 AM
        From Space Operations to Space Traffic Management 15m
        Speaker: Andrea Cardellicchio (Telespazio)
      • 10:35 AM
        Australia’s approach to sustainable space activities: the Space Sustainability Framework 15m
        Speaker: Marie Le Pellec (Australian Space Agency)
    • 10:50 AM 11:00 AM
      Break 10m
    • 11:00 AM 12:30 PM
      Working groups: Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 12:30 PM 1:00 PM
      Working groups: Discussion - Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 1:00 PM 2:00 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 2:00 PM 3:15 PM
      Presentations session: Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato - Building 3

      De Donato - Building 3

      Politecnico di Milano

      • 2:00 PM
        DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR SPACE COLLISION AVOIDANCE USING THE ENVIRONMENT-VULNERABILITY-DECISION-TECHNOLOGY FRAMEWORK 15m
        Speaker: Sina Es haghi (Politecnico di Milano)
      • 2:15 PM
        Proposals for Sustainable Space Development: Economic and Environmental Impacts 15m
        Speaker: Hasan Abo Seida (Egyptian Space Agency)
      • 2:30 PM
        Dynamical Characterization of Endogenous Conjunctions within the Starlink Constellation 15m
        Speaker: Sui Chen (Politecnico di Milano)
      • 2:45 PM
        Exploring the Carrying Capacity of Low Earth Orbit: Lessons from Terrestrial Resource Management 15m
        Speaker: Zack Donohew (University of Colorado Boulder)
      • 3:00 PM
        Adaptive Management and Adaptive Governance for Orbital Capacity 15m
        Speaker: Miles Lifson (MIT)
    • 3:15 PM 3:30 PM
      Break 15m
    • 3:30 PM 4:30 PM
      Working groups: Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 4:30 PM 4:45 PM
      Break 15m
    • 4:45 PM 5:30 PM
      Working groups: Discussion - Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 5:30 PM 6:00 PM
      Working groups: Wrap-up - Space capacity allocation and space traffic management De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      De Donato (Building 3) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 6:00 PM 8:00 PM
      Aperitivo 2h
    • 9:00 AM 9:05 AM
      General: Introduction Rogers - Aula Magna

      Rogers - Aula Magna

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 9:05 AM 10:20 AM
      Presentations session: Policy and economic of space debris Rogers - Building 11

      Rogers - Building 11

      Politecnico di Milano

      • 9:05 AM
        Regulator and Policymaker Views on the Utility of Orbital Carrying Capacity 15m
        Speaker: Ian Christensen (Secure World Foundation)
      • 9:20 AM
        International regulation of space debris on celestial bodies 15m
        Speaker: Aleksandar Milanov (Jindal Global University, India)
      • 9:35 AM
        ESA’s Zero Debris Policy 15m
        Speaker: Stijn Lemmens (European Space Agency)
      • 9:50 AM
        An application of a debris index and its complementarity with standard compliance-based approach: the Space Sustainability Rating 15m
        Speaker: Mr Adrien Saada (EPFL Space Center)
      • 10:05 AM
        Comparing the equitability of various regulatory metrics for space debris management 15m
        Speaker: Michael Lindsay (Astroscale)
    • 10:20 AM 10:30 AM
      Break 10m
    • 10:30 AM 12:00 PM
      Working groups: Policy and economic of space debris Rogers (Building 11) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Rogers (Building 11) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 12:00 PM 12:30 PM
      Working groups: Discussion - Policy and economic of space debris Rogers (Building 11) - Aula Magna (Building 1) (Politecno di Milano)

      Rogers (Building 11) - Aula Magna (Building 1)

      Politecno di Milano

    • 12:30 PM 1:30 PM
      Working groups: Discussion and wrap-up Rogers - Building 11

      Rogers - Building 11

      Politecnico di Milano

    • 1:30 PM 2:30 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 2:30 PM 10:00 PM
      Lake Maggiore trip 7h 30m Lake Maggiore

      Lake Maggiore