Orbital debris in low-Earth orbit in the size range from 1 to 10 cm in diameter can be detected but not tracked reliably enough to be avoided by spacecraft. It can cause catastrophic damage even to a shielded spacecraft. With adaptive optics, a ground-based pulsed laser ablating the debris surface can produce enough propulsion in several hundred pulses to cause such debris to reenter the atmosphere. A single laser station could remove all of the 1-10 cm debris in three years or less. A technology demonstration of laser space propulsion is proposed which would pave the way for the implementation of such a debris removal system. The cost of the proposed demonstration is comparable with the estimated annual cost of spacecraft operations in the present orbital debris environment. Orbital debris is not the only space junk that is deleterious to the Earth’s environment. Collisions with asteroids have caused major havoc to the Earth’s biosphere many times in the ancient past. Since the possibility still exists for major impacts, it is shown that it is possible to scale up the systems to prevent these catastrophic collisions given sufficient early warning.
Laser/space material uncooperative propulsion for orbital debris removal and asteroid, meteoroid, and comet deflection
Space technology and applications international forum -1999 ; 1999 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 458 , 1 ; 1237-1246
1999-01-22
10 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999
|Orbital debris removal and meteoroid deflection
SPIE | 1998
|Orbital debris removal and meteoroid deflection [3434-23]
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1998
|Space Station Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Survivability
AIAA | 2002
|