Speakers
Description
The growth of large constellations and the increasing reliance on multiple SSA providers are pushing current conjunction assessment (CA) and collision avoidance (COLA) practices to their limits. In operational CA, decision criteria are still largely driven by geometrical and/or a probability of collision (PoC) thresholds, while neglecting the environmental and economic consequences of a potential collision. Moreover, current practices struggle when several high-risk encounters must be managed concurrently, highlighting the need for robust event-prioritization strategies.
Within the ESA activity TELCOLA, a decision-support framework that couples refined collision risk metrics with quantitative consequence indicators is currently being developed within the ARCADE (Assessment of Risk and Consequences for Avoidance Decision Endorsement) prototype software.
On the risk side, ARCADE provides a suite of refined metrics, including depth of intrusion, scaled and maximum collision probability estimates and risk and dilution predictions, in addition to classical collision risk metrics.
On the consequence side, ARCADE incorporates fragmentation consequence maps to evaluate both short-term (traffic management) and long-term (space sustainability) effects. Additional operational indicators, such as orbital slot value, the expected number of induced manoeuvres and associated operational costs on third-party operators, are also considered. These metrics are integrated through a utility-based decision framework inspired by general decision and risk theories, where the selection among possible actions (“CAM”, “No CAM”, or “Wait”) is driven by the maximization of expected utility.
This work focuses on the aggregation methodology implemented within the CAM decision logic and on its application to event prioritization in operational environments characterized by multiple concurrent conjunctions. Combining risk and consequence metrics enables more transparent, actionable, and sustainability-oriented collision avoidance decisions for satellite operators.
| Which section would you like to submit your abstract to? | Session 5: “How to assess the impact of space missions onto the space environment?” |
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