Research On The Forecast Of Space Debris Environment

So far a significant number of space debris has been accumulated in the orbit space, becoming one of the most important factors threatening the safety of human space activities. The forecast of space debris environment in the future plays a significant influence in the design and arrangement of space activities in the following decades. Various kinds of long-term projection models have been established in some foreign departments. However the details are not available. In China, the study of space debris environment engineering model starts a little late, leaving a significant gap with the advanced studies. This paper is designed to forecast the big space debris environment evolution model in the future based on the available detected data. The result could be a fundamental foundation for the establishment of space debris environment model.First, different mathematical algorithms of debris spatial density are introduced here, according to each orbital region characteristics. The calculation of space debris density is the basic foundation of the description of debris environment and the prediction of collision events in the future. Due to the effect of perturbation factors, the situation of orbital perturbation is different. Here we introduced corresponding methods to calculate the density. In particular, the orbital debris density in the GEO region is calculated in the earth fixed coordinate system, providing a new way to describe the GEO space debris environment.Second, the original parameters of newly created space debris in the future are calculated here, according to the generating events and mitigation measures. Generating events include human space activities, explosion events and collision events. All these events are considered here, together with the mitigation measures as active collision avoidance, active debris removal, explosion reduce and end of mission plans. Combining the standard breakup model provided by NASA and orbital evolution mode provided by previous studies, the environment evolution model of space debris is introduced. Additionally, various kinds of mitigation methods are considered here.In the end, using the available detected data and the modeling method mentioned above, the future space debris environment is predicted. The time interval is2014to2050, orbital altitude range is200km to40000km, the diameter considered here is larger than10cm. The results were compared to the other advanced models. Different kinds of mitigation methods are estimated, and the following problems need to be solved next is raised.