Orbital debris environment resulting from future activities in space

A long-term evolution of space debris environment has been simulated by a numerical model. Based on previously published results in many 50-year runs of the “dynamic model”, an “average model” is derived to reduce the computation time in order to effectively simulate a very-long-term evolution of space debris environment. The evolution of space debris environment is examined with two different future space activities in LEO: (1) Increase the yearly traffic input of new satellites by 2%, 5%, 10%, 20%, and 50%; and (2) place ten large space structures of 100 meters in diameter in the year 1995 at either 500 km or 1000 km altitude. The results indicate that in a 170-year span from 1983, every space activity listed above results in a rapid runaway of debris fluxes from objects of 4 mm or larger.