Reflectance spectroscopy characterization of space debris

Abstract

When characterizing the space debris environment one important point is the identification of the physical properties of the space debris objects. Reflectance spectroscopy is a possible technique to study the surface material of these objects with observations from the ground. In this work the results collected from spectroscopy observations of space debris in orbit are presented. The observations were performed at the 1-meter ESA Space Debris Telescope (ESASDT) in Tenerife equipped with a spectrograph in the 450-960 nm wavelength range. A preliminary classification using three different categories purely based on the shape and appearance of the spectra was proposed. Two debris objects with high AMR could be successfully associated with materials analyzed in the laboratory. The results show that the two debris objects are probably pieces of Kapton MLI with 'gold' and 'silver' coating, respectively. Color indices were extracted from the spectroscopic measurements. For high AMR objects the colors seem to be consistent with the proposed classification in three categories. The B-R and R-I laboratory measurements of 'gold' and 'silver' MLI taken from the literature are comparable with the obtained results.

Looking out for a sustainable space

“…Observations of uncontrolled debris offer a chance to probe the effects of these perturbations and refine models for predicting attitudinal and orbital states (Papushev et al 2009;Kudak et al 2017). Several groups have acquired multi-colour photometric (Hejduk et al 2012;Cardona et al 2016;Zigo et al 2019) and time-resolved spectroscopic (Jorgensen et al 2004;Bédard et al 2014;Vananti et al 2017) measurements to probe the material properties of objects in orbit, a key consideration when modelling the effects of electro-and geo-magnetic torques (Wetterer et al 2014).…”

Lunar Resource Harvesting and Manufacturing: Rich Content for the Chemistry Classroom

“…NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft used reflectance spectroscopy in the near-infrared (NIR) region to map the composition of the lunar surface in 2009 . This remote sensing technique has been used to study the composition of meteorites, asteroids, orbital debris, and planets. − Spectroscopy involves the study of the interaction of light with matter and is commonly used to determine chemical composition. Depending on the unique electronic structure of an element or compound, a substance will absorb light at certain wavelengths and use that energy in a number of ways, to include bond vibrations and rotations or moving electrons to higher energy levels.…”

Space Debris: Optical Measurements

“…Reflectance spectra can provide, similar to color photometry (see Section 3.3), information about the material composition. It can be used to characterize the object [75], [82], [83] or it can reveal whether the object is artificial or not [12]. Reflectance spectroscopy has been adapted to the space debris domain decades ago, and its results are often used for comparisons with the spectra obtained in laboratory experiments for commonly used space materials such as solar panels, MLI, alluminium alloys, white paint, etc.…”