No deal in space: A bargaining model analysis of U.S. resistance to space arms control

Space systems are essential to the global economy and security. The possibility of disruptions arising from competition between the United States and China through the testing and deployment of weapons in space has led to concerns over an incipient space arms race that would threaten satellites, leading to international calls for a space arms control treaty. The paper presents a rationalist theory analysis on the lack of progress in establishing such a treaty, identifying the United States' position of primacy in the global order and its preeminence in space as a primary cause.     

L׳ADROIT – A spaceborne ultraviolet laser system for space debris clearing

Small (1–10 cm) debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are extremely dangerous, because they spread the breakup cascade. Pulsed laser active debris removal using laser ablation jets on target is the most cost-effective way to re-enter the small debris. No other solutions address the whole problem of large (~100 cm, 1 t) as well as small debris. Physical removal of small debris (by nets, tethers and so on) is uneconomical because of the energy cost of matching orbits. In this paper, we present a completely new proposal relative to our earlier work. This new approach uses rapid, head-on interaction in 10–40 s rather than 4 minutes, using 20–40 kW bursts of 100 ps, 355 nm UV pulses from a 1.5 m diameter aperture on a space-based station in LEO. The station employs “heat-capacity” laser mode with low duty cycle to create an adaptable, robust, dual-mode system which can lower or raise large derelict objects into less dangerous orbits, as well as clear out the small debris in a 400-km thick LEO band. Time-average laser optical power is less than 15 kW. The combination of short pulses and UV wavelength gives lower required fluence on target as well as higher momentum coupling coefficient. An orbiting system can have short range because of high interaction rate deriving from its velocity through the debris field. This leads to much smaller mirrors and lower average power than the ground-based systems we have considered previously. Our system also permits strong defense of specific assets. Analysis gives an estimated cost less than $1 k each to re-enter most small debris in a few months, and about 280 k$ each to raise or lower 1-ton objects by 40 km. We believe it can do this for 2000 such large objects in about four years. Laser ablation is one of the few interactions in nature that propel a distant object without any significant reaction on the source.     

ESA’s process for the identification and assessment of high-risk conjunction events

ESA’s Space Debris Office provides an operational service for the assessment of collision risks of ESA satellites. Currently, the ENVISAT and ERS-2 missions in low Earth orbits are covered by this service. If an upcoming high-risk conjunction event is predicted based on analysis of Two-Line Element (TLE) data from the US Space Surveillance Network, then independent tracking data of the potential high-risk conjunction object are acquired to improve the knowledge of its orbit. This improved knowledge and the associated small error covariances derived from the orbit determination process scale down the position error ellipsoid at the conjunction epoch. Hence, for the same miss-distance, in most cases an avoidance manoeuvre can be suppressed with an acceptable residual risk.     

Developing the global exploration roadmap: An example using the humans to the lunar surface theme

The development of the Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) by 12 space agencies participating in the International Space Exploration Coordination Group broadly outlines a pathway to send humans beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since Apollo. Three themes have emerged: Exploration of a Near-Earth Asteroid, Extended Duration Crew Missions, and Humans to the Lunar Surface. The lack of detail within each of these themes could mean that realizing the goals of the GER would be significantly delayed. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that many of the details needed to fully define and evaluate these themes in terms of scientific rationale, economic viability, and technical feasibility already exist and need to be mapped to the GER. Here, we use the Humans to the Lunar Surface theme as an example to illustrate how this process could work. By mapping documents from a variety of international stakeholders, this process can be used to cement buy-in from the current partners and attract new ones to this effort.     

Tethered towing using open-loop input-shaping and discrete thrust levels

Asteroid retrieval, satellite servicing, and debris removal concepts often rely on a thrusting vehicle to redirect and steer a passive object. One effective way to tow the object is through a tether. This study employs a discretized tether model attached to six degree-of-freedom end bodies. To reduce the risk of a post-burn collision between the end bodies, discrete thrust input shaping profiles are considered including a Posicast input and a bang-off-bang thrust profile. These input shaping techniques attain desirable collision avoidance performance by inducing a tumbling or gravity gradient motion of the tethered formation. Their performance is compared to an earlier frequency notched thruster profile.     

Planetary protection on international waters: An onboard protocol for capsule retrieval and biosafety control in sample return mission

Planetary protection has been recognized as one of the most important issues in sample return missions that may host certain living forms and biotic signatures in a returned sample. This paper proposes an initiative of sample capsule retrieval and onboard biosafety protocol in international waters for future biological and organic constituent missions to bring samples from possible habitable bodies in the solar system. We suggest the advantages of international waters being outside of national jurisdiction and active regions of human and traffic affairs on the condition that we accept the Outer Space Treaty. The scheme of onboard biological quarantine definitely reduces the potential risk of back-contamination of extraterrestrial materials to the Earth.     

Short-arc tracklet association for geostationary objects

Measurement association and initial orbit determination is a fundamental task when building up a database of space objects. This paper proposes an efficient and robust method to determine the orbit using the available information of two tracklets, i.e. their line-of-sights and their derivatives. The approach works with a boundary-value formulation to represent hypothesized orbital states and uses an optimization scheme to find the best fitting orbits. The method is assessed and compared to an initial-value formulation using a measurement set taken by the Zimmerwald Small Aperture Robotic Telescope of the Astronomical Institute at the University of Bern. False associations of closely spaced objects on similar orbits cannot be completely eliminated due to the short duration of the measurement arcs. However, the presented approach uses the available information optimally and the overall association performance and robustness is very promising. The boundary-value optimization takes only around 2% of computational time when compared to optimization approaches using an initial-value formulation. The full potential of the method in terms of run-time is additionally illustrated by comparing it to other published association methods.     

The ionosphere and the Latin America VLF Network Mexico (LAVNet-Mex) station

In order to detect and study the ionospheric response to solar flares (transient high energy solar radiation), we have constructed a radio receiver station at Mexico City, which is part of the “Latin American Very low frequency Network” (LAVNet-Mex). This station extends to the northern hemisphere the so called “South American VLF Network”.     

First results of operational ionospheric dynamics prediction for the Brazilian Space Weather program

It is shown the development and preliminary results of operational ionosphere dynamics prediction system for the Brazilian Space Weather program. The system is based on the Sheffield University Plasmasphere–Ionosphere Model (SUPIM), a physics-based model computer code describing the distribution of ionization within the Earth mid to equatorial latitude ionosphere and plasmasphere, during geomagnetically quiet periods. The model outputs are given in a 2-dimensional plane aligned with Earth magnetic field lines, with fixed magnetic longitude coordinate. The code was adapted to provide the output in geographical coordinates. It was made referring to the Earth’s magnetic field as an eccentric dipole, using the approximation based on International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF-11). During the system operation, several simulation runs are performed at different longitudes. The original code would not be able to run all simulations serially in reasonable time. So, a parallel version for the code was developed for enhancing the performance. After preliminary tests, it was frequently observed code instability, when negative ion temperatures or concentrations prevented the code from continuing its processing. After a detailed analysis, it was verified that most of these problems occurred due to concentration estimation of simulation points located at high altitudes, typically over 4000 km of altitude. In order to force convergence, an artificial exponential decay for ion–neutral collisional frequency was used above mentioned altitudes. This approach shown no significant difference from original code output, but improved substantially the code stability. In order to make operational system even more stable, the initial altitude and initial ion concentration values used on exponential decay equation are changed when convergence is not achieved, within pre-defined values. When all code runs end, the longitude of every point is then compared with its original reference station longitude, and differences are compensated by changing the simulation point time slot, in a temporal adjustment optimization. Then, an approximate neighbor searching technique was developed to obtain the ion concentration values in a regularly spaced grid, using inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation. A 3D grid containing ion and electron concentrations is generated for every hour of simulated day. Its spatial resolution is 1° of latitude per 1° of longitude per 10 km of altitude. The vertical total electron content (VTEC) is calculated from the grid, and plotted in a geographic map. An important feature that was implemented in the system is the capacity of combining observational data and simulation outputs to obtain more appropriate initial conditions to the ionosphere prediction. Newtonian relaxation method was used for this data assimilation process, where ionosonde data from four different locations in South America was used to improve the system accuracy. The whole process runs every day and predicts the VTEC values for South America region with almost 24 h ahead.     

Development of in-situ Space Debris Detector

Due to high relative velocities, collisions of spacecraft in orbit with Space Debris (SD) or Micrometeoroids (MM) can lead to payload degradation, anomalies as well as failures in spacecraft operation, or even loss of mission. Flux models and impact risk assessment tools, such as MASTER (Meteoroid and Space Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference) or ORDEM (Orbital Debris Engineering Model), and ESABASE2 or BUMPER II are used to analyse mission risk associated with these hazards. Validation of flux models is based on measured data. Currently, as most of the SD and MM objects are too small (millimeter down to micron sized) for ground-based observations (e.g. radar, optical), the only available data for model validation is based upon retrieved hardware investigations e.g. Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), Hubble Space Telescope (HST), European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA). Since existing data sets are insufficient, further in-situ experimental investigation of the SD and MM populations are required. This paper provides an overview and assessment of existing and planned SD and MM impact detectors. The detection area of the described detectors is too small to adequately provide the missing data sets. Therefore an innovative detection concept is proposed that utilises existing spacecraft components for detection purposes. In general, solar panels of a spacecraft provide a large area that can be utilised for in-situ impact detection. By using this method on several spacecraft in different orbits the detection area can be increased significantly and allow the detection of SD and MM objects with diameters as low as 100 μm. The design of the detector is based on damage equations from HST and EURECA solar panels. An extensive investigation of those panels was performed by ESA and is summarized within this paper. Furthermore, an estimate of the expected sensitivity of the patented detector concept as well as examples for its implementation into large and small spacecraft are presented.