Active Removal of Orbital Debris

Clifford Hall, Room 210

With the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, humans placed the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit. Although Sputnik 1 lasted less than three months in orbit, the technology was proven. Humans possessed the capability to place objects in orbit for extended periods of time. Since that day over 60 years ago, thousands of man-made objects circle the Earth every day. While space is infinitely vast, the particularly useful regions at specific distances from Earth is finite. Dozens of launches occur per year, occasionally with dozens of individual payloads. This continually depletes the regions of useful space. Additionally, the depletion is exacerbated by collision events between objects in space. Two such events, the 2007 Chinese ASAT test and the 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision added over 5000 pieces of trackable objects. Collectively, these objects orbiting the Earth with no purpose are referred to as space debris. The proliferation of debris is managed by national and international regulations, but annual addition of debris out numbers the annual removal via deorbit and graveyard orbits. This paper answers whether the question, “Is active debris removal (ADR) necessary to preserve Earth orbit(s)?” Through analysis of the current trends and policies, and the potential effectiveness of ADR, it is concluded that ADR is required for the preservation of Earth(s) orbits.