Speaker
Description
The growing amount of space debris is a phenomenon of great concern to the safe use of space. Despite growth mitigation guidelines, the spatial density of objects in LEO is only predicted to rise. In order to keep operational satellites safe, orbital debris needs to be tracked as best as possible to predict potentially hazardous collisions. Current ground-based observing facilities are limited by several factors: the atmosphere hinders the ability to see objects smaller than a few centimetres and measurements from several facilities cannot guarantee to be of the same object.
This project aims to counter the latter problem, by analysing the difference in observation access time of observations from in-orbit satellites with observations from a ground-station. To do so, this project proposes a feasibility study on the recycling of close-to-end-of-life optical Earth-observing constellation which will not only be able to provide in-orbit debris observation but will prevent the need of launching new payload, contributing to a circular space economy. This feasibility study focuses on recycling Cosmo-SkyMed for the observation of a debris field contained within the most spatially dense area of LEO. The constellation’s observation access time of the debris field shall be compared to that of ESA’s OGS and TIRA stations.
The results show that in-orbit observations lead to six times longer observation access periods in a 60° window around the constellation’s RAAN. Recycling an optical Earth-observing constellation requires trade-offs due to focal length limitations, but results point towards the recycling of radar equipped satellites providing a clear observation access advantage over ground-based observations.
