Speakers
Description
Space debris indicators are powerful tools for the quantitative evaluation of the environmental impact of space missions towards space debris and the effectiveness of space debris mitigation adoptions. This work presents the advancements of the THEMIS 2.0 software for “Tracking the Health of the Environment and Missions in Space” within the project S2-SD-02 - Extended Methods for Space Debris Consequence and Space Capacity Analyses lead by Politecnico di Milano, in partnership with GMV UK, funded by the ESA Space Safety Programme.
The impact of a space mission is measured in terms of risk that the undeliberate fragmentation of such mission might cause on the overall active spacecraft population. Such formulation is thought to give an estimation of the increased operational effort that all spacecraft operation will have to sustain in case an object fragments in another orbital bin. The THEMIS debris indicator can be then used for evaluating possible mission design options in terms of orbit selection, and spacecraft characteristics. When the THEMIS index of each active object in the population of active satellites is aggregated, it is used as a measure of the overall space carrying capacity. This metric can be exploited to compare various future scenarios of the evolution of the space environment and evaluate the risk of operating in a specific orbital slot. Improved capabilities cover the improved PMD modelling, improved constellation design, more precise mapping of the trackability of small debris fragments, possibility to evaluate the risk effect over different time frames etc.
This session will presents in an interactive way the capabilities of the THEMIS 2.0 software though its web based front-end. The frontend of the software is opened to the space community of space operators, manufacturer, regulators and space debris experts through an application for volunteer beta testers. Already 20 spacecraft operator, space debris experts and regulators have been involved in using the software, performing some guided exercises and asked to provide feedback in their use and their applicability to preliminary mission design, space safety operations and end-of-life disposal design.
This session will also serve as interaction with the end-used of the tools will be shown to demonstrate its applicability to a sustainable mission design and the evaluation of mitigation guidelines.