Comprehensive Space and Ground Based Laser Intervention For Orbital Debris (OD) Removal

Dr. Jonathan W. Campbell

University of Alabama Huntsville

In December 2009, a long overdue paradigm shift occurred with regards to orbital debris. At a 2009 DARPA conference in Washington, D.C., OD went from being an "acceptable risk" to being a runaway problem. In fact, the problem had been allowed to become so bad by that time that NASA and DARPA experts stated that even if all launches ceased immediately, the OD population would continue to grow due to collisions between man-made objects already in space.

Traveling at hypervelocities, even a relatively small object the size of a ping pong ball can fatally damage a much larger satellite resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of losses. Presently, armor plating is not mission effective for shielding assets from objects greater that 1 cm in characteristic size. For OD smaller than 10 cm in size, tracking to enable maneuver may become too unreliable at the sizes. Fortunately, solutions do exist. Although a partial solution, the NASA Project ORION study showed that ground based lasers could be very effective in removing OD from low earth orbit on a cost effective basis. This was shown to be true even if limited to one facility located near the equator.

The question examined here could ORION be extended to provide a comprehensive solution for all altitudes up to geosynchronous orbits. We hypothesize and show that by placing a space laser platform in geostationary orbit above a ground based laser facility located at the equator, all 1-10 cm OD at all altitudes could be removed. This could be then be enhanced by adding additional ground based facilities along the equator. Further, we show how this may be accomplished without increasing the risk to spacecraft in lower orbits. Finally, we show how this approach may also be useful for removing small meteoroids.

Presented at ISDC 2011 - Huntsville. Paper and presentation charts are not available.