AbstractOrbital debris poses a significant threat to spacecraft health and safety. Recent events such as China's anti-satellite test and the Breeze-M rocket explosion have led to an even greater awareness and concern in the satellite community. Therefore, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has established requirements that routine conjunction assessment screening shall be performed for all maneuverable spacecraft having perigees <2000km or within 200km of geosynchronous altitude. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has developed an operational collision risk assessment process to protect NASA's high-value unmanned (robotic) assets that has been in use since January 2005. This paper provides an overview of the NASA robotic conjunction assessment process, including descriptions of the new tools developed to analyze close approach data and of the risk mitigation strategies employed. In addition, statistical data describing the number of conjunctions experienced are presented. A debris avoidance maneuver performed by Aura in June of 2008 is described in detail to illustrate the process.


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    Title :

    The NASA robotic conjunction assessment process: Overview and operational experiences


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Acta Astronautica ; 66 , 7-8 ; 1253-1261


    Publication date :

    2009-10-05


    Size :

    9 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English