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.
Ground-based laser propulsion for orbital debris removal
Space technology and applications international forum - 1998 ; 1998 ; Albuquerque,New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 420 , 1 ; 1212-1218
1998-01-15
7 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Ground-Based Laser Propulsion for Orbital Debris Removal
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