A comprehensive assessment of collision likelihood in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

Oltrogge, Daniel; Alfano, Salvatore; Law, C. M.; Cacioni, Alex; Kelso, T. S.

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2018.03.017

Cited by 40 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Voluntary approaches are often supported by legal oversight to verify that environmental performance actually improves. This includes measures such as unilateral commitments, negotiated agreements or voluntary programmes (OECD, 2000 [51]). Taxes are by far the most common policy instrument, followed by fees/charges, environmentally motivated subsidies and voluntary approaches.…”

Section: National Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Space sustainability

2020

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers

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We also acknowledge the kind support of UKSA when developing the initial draft paper, as well as the support of CSA and NASA for the co-organisation of the OECD Workshop on the Economics of Space Debris, hosted by the CSA in Montreal in June 2019. The workshop gathered 45 experts from ministries, space agencies and other administrations, international organisations, industry and academia. We warmly thank the experts who participated and recognise their contributions to this paper.We also appreciate the detailed comments of the individual members of the Space Forum's Steering Group on drafts of this paper, and from the experts in their respective organisations. We thank in particular David

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Section: National Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• These approaches generally generate "modest" environmental effects, because of the risk of freeriding, poor monitoring, non-enforceable commitments, lack of transparency, etc. (OECD, 2000 [51])…”

Section: Voluntary Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Space sustainability

2020

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers

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“…Even with the revised separations, keeping these satellites from bumping into each other would require careful planning and orbit maintenance. Even for the current catalog of Earth's geosynchronous satellites and debris, the comprehensive analysis of Oltrogge et al (2018) suggests collisions of satellites with orbiting debris may be relatively frequent. Their analysis implies a collision every four years for the active satellites against a catalog containing all known objects larger than 1 cm, and every 50 years against a 20cm catalog.…”

Section: Practical Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Analysis of Clarke Exobelt Detectability

Sallmen

Korpela

Crawford-Taylor

2019

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We analyze the potential transit light curve effects due to a Clarke belt of satellites around an exoplanet. Building on code and analysis from Korpela, Sallmen, & Leystra Greene (2015), we refine the transit analysis of Socas-Navarro (2018) by incorporating limb-darkening and taking an observer-centered approach to examining residuals. These considerations make Clarke exobelt detectability more difficult than previous estimates. We also consider practical dynamical issues for exobelts, confirming that synchronously orbiting belts are dynamically unstable around planets in the habitable zones of M stars, and determining the maximum quasi-stable belt size in these situations. Using simulations for both G and M stars, we conclude that to have an even marginally detectable impact on transit light curves, exobelts must be substantially denser than previous estimates. We also estimate collision rates for the required satellite densities assuming random orbits, and find they would present significant monitoring and guidance challenges. If detectable belts exist, they would require some (possibly high) degree of ordering to avoid collisions, and must be actively maintained or they will dissipate on relatively short astronomical timescales. We conclude that detectable exobelts are likely to be rare, and have extremely low prospects for detection by transit monitoring from both current and upcoming missions.

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“…Smaller objects are monitored sporadically at best, due to the limited availability of sufficiently sensitive sensors. This is of particular concern, given a recent study that found relative velocities in GEO can reach up to 4 kms −1 , approaching the hypervelocity regime where collisions with cm-sized objects could prove mission-fatal (Oltrogge et al, 2018). As break-ups and anomalies add more small fragments to the GEO environment, it is important that we continue to observe faint objects with large telescopes to better understand their behaviour and the risk they pose to operational satellites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

DebrisWatch I: A survey of faint geosynchronous debris

Blake

Chote

Pollacco

et al. 2021

Advances in Space Research

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Recent anomalies exhibited by satellites and rocket bodies have highlighted that a population of faint debris exists at geosynchronous (GEO) altitudes, where there are no natural removal mechanisms. Despite previous optical surveys probing to around 10-20 cm in size, regular monitoring of faint sources at GEO is challenging, thus our knowledge remains sparse. It is essential that we continue to explore the faint debris population using large telescopes to better understand the risk posed to active GEO satellites. To this end, we present photometric results from a survey of the GEO region carried out with the 2.54 m Isaac Newton Telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands. We probe to 21 st visual magnitude (around 10 cm, assuming Lambertian spheres with an albedo of 0.1), uncovering 129 orbital tracks with GEO-like motion across the eight nights of dark-grey time comprising the survey. The faint end of our brightness distribution continues to rise until the sensitivity limit of the sensor is reached, suggesting that the modal brightness could be even fainter. We uncover a number of faint, uncatalogued objects that show photometric signatures of rapid tumbling, many of which straddle the limiting magnitude of our survey over the course of a single exposure, posing a complex issue when estimating object size. This

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A comprehensive assessment of collision likelihood in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

Cited by 40 publications

References 10 publications

Space sustainability

Space sustainability

Improved Analysis of Clarke Exobelt Detectability

DebrisWatch I: A survey of faint geosynchronous debris

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