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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pages 1-10

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From page 1...
... , resulting in a fairly continual flux of meteoroids on spacecraft in Earth orbit. In contrast, artificial debris objects (including nonfunctional spacecraft, spent rocket bodies, mission-related objects, the products of spacecraft surface deterioration, and fragments from spacecraft and rocket body breakups)
From page 2...
... A responsible approach to orbital debris will require continuing efforts to increase our knowledge of the current and future debris population, the development of tools to aid spacecraft designers in protecting spacecraft against the debris hazard, and international implementation of appropriate measures to minimize the creation of additional debris. CHARACTERIZING THE DEBRIS ENVIRONMENT The debris environment is difficult to characterize accurately.
From page 3...
... to suggest potential investigation methods. As an interim set of debris characterization research priorities, the committee recommends thefollowing: models of thefuture debris environment should tee further improved, uncataloged debris in LEO should be carefully studied, · further studies should be conducted to better understand the GEO debris environment, · a strategy should be developed to gain an understanding of the sources and evolution of the small debris population, and · the data acquired from this research should be compiled into a standard population characterization reference model.
From page 4...
... If the kinetic energy released in a collision is large enough compared to the mass of the objects involved, a catastrophic breakup will occur. In such a breakup, numerous fragments capable of causing further catastrophic breakups could be produced.
From page 5...
... As a result of these limitations, current spacecraft protection systems may not provide their desired level of protection, and current models of the effects of collisions on the future debris population may be inaccurate. To facilitate the development of improved models of debris impact damage and enable the development of improved debris shielding, the committee recommends the continuation of research to characterize the effects of hypervelocity impacts in thefollowing areas: · further development of techniques to launch projectiles to the velocities typical of collisions in LEO; · improved models of the properties of new spacecraft materials; · studies of impact damage effects on critical spacecraft components; · development of analytical tools consistent over a range of debris impact velocities, shapes, and compositions; and · improved models of catastrophic space object breakup due to debris impact.
From page 6...
... Active protection measures, such as on-orbit collision avoidance, are typically expensive and difficult to implement effectively. REDUCING THE FUTURE DEBRIS HEARD If the only additions to the future debris population were rocket bodies, nonfunctional spacecraft, mission-related debris, and the products of explosions and surface deterioration, the space object population would probably continue its roughly linear growth.
From page 7...
... Since the total mass of objects in orbit is a key determinant of the rate of future collisional population growth, it will be necessary to take measures to remove spacecraft and rocket bodies from some crowded orbital regions at the end of their functional lifetimes in order to reduce the potential for exponential growth of the debris population. Various methods have been proposed to remove spacecraft and rocket bodies from crowded orbital regions at the end of their functional lifetimes.
From page 8...
... In orbital regions that are too high above the atmosphere for economical deorbiting or orbital lifetime reduction maneuvers, spacecraft or rocket bodies can be moved to "disposal orbits" a safe distance away from valuable orbital regions at the end of their functional lifetimes. Disposal orbits are not a viable alternative within LEO because perturbing forces make all such orbits unstable; objects in LEO disposal orbits will eventually cross heavily trafficked orbital regions.
From page 9...
... Until such studies produce a verifiably superior long-term strategy for dealing with the GEO debris hazard, operators of GEO spacecraft and rocket bodies should be encouraged to reorbit their spacecraft at the end of their functional lifetimes if they are capable of safely performing a reorbiting maneuver to a disposal orbit at least 300 km from GEO. The threat that orbital debris poses to international space activities is presently not large, but it may be on the verge of becoming significant.


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