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Conceptual design of an Orbital Debris Defense SystemMan made orbital debris has become a serious problem. Currently NORAD tracks over 7000 objects in orbit and less than 10 percent of these are active payloads. Common estimates are that the amount of debris will increase at a rate of 10 percent per year. Impacts of space debris with operational payloads or vehicles is a serious risk to human safety and mission success. For example, the impact of a 0.2 mm diameter paint fleck with the Space Shuttle Challenger window created a 2 mm wide by 0.6 mm deep pit. The cost to replace the window was over $50,000. A conceptual design for a Orbital Debris Defense System (ODDS) is presented which considers a wide range of debris sizes, orbits and velocities. Two vehicles were designed to collect and remove space debris. The first would attach a re-entry package to de-orbit very large debris, e.g. inactive satellites and spent upper stages that tend to break up and form small debris. This vehicle was designed to contain several re-entry packages, and be refueled and resupplied with more re-entry packages as needed. The second vehicle was designed to rendezvous with and capture debris ranging from 10 cm to 2 m. Due to tracking limitations, no technically feasible method for collecting debris below 10 cm in size could be devised; it must be accomplished through international regulations which reduce the accumulation of space debris.
Document ID
19950006283
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Contractor Report (CR)
Authors
Bedillion, Erik
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Blevins, Gary
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Bohs, Brian
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Bragg, David
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Brown, Christopher
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Casanova, Jose
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Cribbs, David
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Demko, Richard
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Henry, Brian
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
James, Kelly
(West Virginia Univ. Morgantown, VA, United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1994
Subject Category
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Report/Patent Number
NAS 1.26:197211
NASA-CR-197211
Accession Number
95N12696
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASW-4435
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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