Man-made orbital debris is fast becoming a threat to safe operations all around the Earth's orbital domain. Even submillimeter particles traveling at orbital velocities can cause significant amounts of damage to exposed hardware in Earth orbit. Spent upper stages accidental explosions of propellant tankage, colliding micrometeorites, thermal insulation and paint flakes, tools and accessories unintentionally left behind, and several other factors including decommissioned, degrading satellites in graveyard orbits contribute to the increase of this dangerous phenomenon. A basic architectural concept is presented on a space vehicle designed to remove orbital debris from LEO. The vehicle uses a "snowplow" approach to deflect incoming debris particles to lower orbits, where the particles will burn up upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. As an additional tool, a laser is mounted to destroy smaller particles.


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    Title :

    ORDER: A Preliminary Concept for ORbital DEbris Removal


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Fifth International Conference on Space ; 1996 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States



    Publication date :

    1996-07-19




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    ORDER-A Preliminary Concept for ORbital DEbris Removal

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