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Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft An Assessment of NASA's Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Programs (2011) / Chapter Skim
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8 Hazards Posed by Reentry of Orbital Debris
Pages 60-64

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From page 60...
... 2 DAS produces a first-order assessment of human casualty risks associated with uncontrolled space object reentries that, by design, yields a slightly conservative result. If a program or project meets reentry risk require ments using DAS, no more calculations are required.
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From page 61...
... The total debris casualty ground coverage is calculated by combining ground footprint and object survival estimates. The impact casualty risk is determined by combining the predicted mass of the surviving object mass with a worldwide population distribution model.
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From page 62...
... The committee was presented with examples of 10 such objects, found in locations all over the world. The NASA website1 as well as a publication by the Aerospace Corporation includes examples of recovered reentered space hardware.2 The following recent example of a recovery analysis illustrates that it takes a certain amount of determination to add data on a piece of reentered debris into the NASA database.
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From page 63...
... Finding: NASA's Object Reentry Survival Analysis Tool provides results as point estimates without confidence bounds or uncertainty estimates. Recommendation: In regard to debris reentry risk, NASA should provide confidence bounds on and uncertainty estimates of the resulting risk levels for use in both the Debris Assessment Software and the Object Reentry Survival Analysis Tool.
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From page 64...
... Finding: The reentry hazard programs used by NASA and the European Space Agency to determine the risk to people on the ground from reentering debris differ in how those thresholds are defined. NASA's Object Reentry Survival Analysis Tool defines a "casualty" as personal injury, whereas ESA models equate a "casualty" with death.
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Key Terms

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  • johnson space
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  • survivability analysis
  • object reentry

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  • space center
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  • debris assessment

  • assessment software
  • reentry risk
  • reentry events
  • debris program
  • upper atmosphere

  • space object
  • nasa orbital
  • reentry scenario
  • nasa programs
  • space hardware

  • using das
  • space agency
  • space flight
  • space telescope
  • reentering debris

  • surviving object
  • european space
  • solar activity
  • earth observing
  • impact hazard


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