Space debris reentry prediction and ground risk estimation using a probabilistic breakup model

Development of the Explosion Breakup Model for Space Debris

JOURNAL OF THE JAPAN SOCIETY FOR AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE SCIENCES ◽

10.2322/jjsass.57.135 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 57 (663) ◽

pp. 135-140

Author(s):

Hidehiro HATA ◽

Tetsuyuki HIROE ◽

Kazuhito FUJIWARA

Keyword(s):

Space Debris ◽

Breakup Model

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Tuning of NASA Standard Breakup Model for Fragmentation Events Modelling

Aerospace ◽

10.3390/aerospace8070185 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (7) ◽

pp. 185

Author(s):

Nicola Cimmino ◽

Giorgio Isoletta ◽

Roberto Opromolla ◽

Giancarmine Fasano ◽

Aniello Basile ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Space Debris ◽

Small Mass ◽

Orbital Debris ◽

Space Environment ◽

Iterative Approach ◽

Continuous Growth ◽

Collision Event ◽

Line Elements ◽

Breakup Model ◽

Orbital Data

The continuous growth of space debris motivates the development and the improvement of tools that support the monitoring of a more and more congested space environment. Satellite breakup models play a key role to predict and analyze orbital debris evolution, and the NASA Standard Breakup Model represents a widely used reference, with current activities relevant to its evolution and improvements especially towards fragmentation of small mass spacecraft. From an operational perspective, an important point for fragmentation modelling concerns the tuning of the breakup model to achieve consistency with orbital data of observed fragments. In this framework, this paper proposes an iterative approach to estimate the model inputs, and in particular, the parents’ masses involved in a collision event. The iterative logic exploits the knowledge of Two Line Elements (TLE) of the fragments at some time after the event to adjust the input parameters of the breakup model with the objective of obtaining the same number of real fragments within a certain tolerance. Atmospheric re-entry is accounted for. As a result, the breakup model outputs a set of fragments whose statistical distribution, in terms of number and size, is consistent with the catalogued ones. The iterative approach is demonstrated for two different scenarios (i.e., catastrophic collision and non-catastrophic collision) using numerical simulations. Then, it is also applied to a real collision event.

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