A Comparison of ESA and NASA Space Debris Models

Details A Comparison of ESA and NASA Space Debris Models A Comparison of ESA and NASA Space Debris Models

Dec 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996esasp.392..349h&link_type=abstract

Environment Modelling for Space-based Applications, Symposium Proceedings (ESA SP-392). ESTEC Noordwijk, 18-20 September 1996. E

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NASA recently developed a new orbital debris environment model for spacecraft design and observations in low earth orbit. This model has been implemented at ESA/ESTEC in an application which is able to assess debris flux distributions according to target and impactor orbital parameters as well as the directional dependencies of the impactor fluxes. In this paper, the following three models are compared: the above mentioned NASA model, the ESA MASTER Analyst Application, developed under ESA/ESOC contract in 1995 and the current NASA space debris reference model, which was developed in 1989. The conceptual designs of the three models are discussed and their quantitative predictions are compared for various target orbit characteristics, including more detailed analysis of the orbits of ERS-1, LDEF and ISSA (International Space Station Alpha). It is shown in particular that considerable discrepancies of more than one order of magnitude exist between the predictions of the different models in the region of sub-mm sized particles as well as for diameters greater than 1cm. Refined predictions of the debris flux given by the different models taking into account the orientation of the surface are investigated in the case of LDEF and ISSA. For further information on ESA and NASA space debris modelling activities have a look at the following sites:

• Space Debris Activities at ESOC
• Modelling the Space Environment at ESTEC
• UNO Office of Outer Space Affairs
• NASA-JSC Space Science Branch

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