激光驱动接力移除空间碎片的小卫星星座及可行性研究

在众多空间碎片移除技术中，天基激光烧蚀驱动是一种高效的、有广阔应用前景的移除技术，特别是针对移除海量的、尺寸在1~10 cm的危险碎片而言，更是具有独特优势。然而，这一技术对高能激光器单脉冲能量、光束质量、发射镜口径等要求很高，目前的硬件水平还达不到实用指标要求，制约了其天基应用。为了克服这些硬件技术障碍，本文另辟蹊径，利用小卫星概念，提出了由不同轨道高度小卫星平台组成小卫星星座，通过在每个小卫星平台上的激光驱动接力来逐步降低碎片轨道高度，最终达到移除空间碎片的小卫星接力移除星座的构想。基于现有的激光器性能参数，根据激光烧蚀驱动碎片动力学模型计算了单个卫星平台的移除能力，结果显示，10 J单脉冲能量激光器和0.5 m直径发射镜，能够对20 km范围内、尺寸小于10 cm碎片进行有效驱动。进而，针对空间碎片密集度高而应用最广的800 km轨道高度区域，设计了由分布在不同轨道高度的30颗小卫星组成接力驱动移除星座系统方案，通过仿真模拟计算验证了星座系统的移除碎片的可行性。该研究利用目前热门的小卫星星座，降低了天基激光移除空间碎片技术对硬件的性能要求，为该技术的应用提供了新的思路和途径，所提出的小卫星接力驱动星座系统方案也有工程参考价值。

A Laser Driven Relay Small Satellite Constellation for Space Debris Active Removal and Feasibility Study

Space-based laser ablation driven technique is considered to be the most effective technique for space debris active removal, especially having a unique advantage for the dangerous space debris with a size of 1-10 cm. However, this technique has very high requirements for the laser single pulse energy, beam quality, and aperture of the transmitting mirror, and the current hardware is not enough to meet the requirements of applications, so it is restricted for applications. In order to overcome these technical barriers, the laser driven relay idea is proposed, i.e. the debris orbit height is reduced by the laser on a small satellite platform. The debris orbit height is gradually reduced step by step through the small satellite platforms with different orbit altitude, and the small satellite platforms forms a laser driven relay small satellite constellation. Based on the existing laser performance parameters and the dynamic model of the laser ablation driven debris, the removal capacity of a single satellite platform is calculated, and the results show that 10 J single laser pulse energy and 0.5 m-diameter emission mirror can drive the debris with a size less than 10 cm and a range within 20 kilometers. By using this laser driven relay idea, a small satellite constellation system is designed, which is composed of 30 small satellites with different heights, for removing debris from 800 km altitude area. The removing performance of the constellation system is verified by the numerical simulation.The advantage of this research is to reduce the requirements for the hardware of space debris removal by space-based laser, using the currently popular small satellite constellation concept. It provides a new way for the applications of the space-based laser ablation driven technique, and also the proposed laser driven relay small satellite constellation system has an engineering reference value.