Space Debris. Dr. David Kendall Canadian Space Agency

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1 Space Debris Dr. David Kendall Canadian Space Agency International Interdisciplinary Congress on Space Debris Remediation November, 2011 Faculty of Law, McGill University

2 Recent CSA Space Debris Initiatives since joining the Inter-Agency Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) 1 st Canadian Orbital Debris Workshop held at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), June 21-22, 2011; summary report now available. Space Debris Studies Announcement of Opportunity (AO) planned for April 2012 release A Feasibility Study for a system to perform space debris detection and tracking has been completed to address needs of CSA s Satellite Operations New spacecraft in support of monitoring of objects & debris: Near Earth Orbit Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) & Sapphire, launch date June 2012 Initiated CSA-NASA Hyper-Velocity Impact (HVI) cross calibration exercise with Canadian facility Comparison of HVI Test Technologies & Gap Identification Spacecraft Debris collision events since May 2010: Radarsat-1(3); SCISAT (1), Radarsat-2 (6): No maneuvers where necessary. CRAMS (Conjunction Risk Assessment and Mitigation System), CSA s automated conjunction analysis system is operational since Sept Concept studies on Active Debris Removal (ADR) underway with Canadian industry

3 Space Debris Monitoring from Ground A Feasibility Study for a system to perform space debris detection and tracking has been performed to address needs of CSA s Satellite Operations. Key Requirements: 5 cm debris detection up to LEO (800 km) 5 m in-track x 50 m cross-track debris position accuracy at time of closest approach System Concept: 24 receiving antenna and one transmit antenna operating at S-Band. Interferometric processing of received signals to achieve high-accuracy tracking

4 NEOSSat Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite Mission Objectives Near Earth Space Surveillance NEOSSat will search for near-earth asteroids not limited by the day-night cycle of earth-based telescopes, and can operate 24/7. The hundreds of images per day will be downloaded and analyzed by the University of Calgary's NEOSSat science operations centre. Through NEOSSat, Canada will contribute to the international effort to catalogue the near-earth population of asteroids producing information that will be crucial to targeting new destinations for future space exploration missions. High Earth Orbit NEOSSat will monitor orbiting space objects keeping track of the positions of both satellites and "space junk" as part of the High Earth Orbit Surveillance System (HEOSS) project by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). The information produced by NEOSSat will bolster Canada's contribution to international efforts to maintain the safety of Canadian and international assets, both civilian and military.

5 NEOSSat Systems Description: A microsatellite to acquire useful metric (position/time) data on Near Earth-orbiting objects (asteroids) and man-made objects (spacecraft) with altitudes between 15,000 and 40,000 km NESS Mission Western Search Field Venus Orbit NEOSSat Orbit Sun NESS Mission Eastern Search Field Moon s Orbit Technical and Performance Characteristics Optical telescope: collecting mirror 15 cm feeding two CCD s (1024 X1024 pixels) camera: One CCD used for science measurement the other CCD tracks guide stars for satellite attitude control. HEOSS Searches for Deep Space Satellites in in Antisolar anti-solar direction the direction Geostationary Satellites Geostationary Satellites NEOSSat CVZ NEOSSat CVZ Earth s Shadow Earth s Shadow Spacecraft: microsatellite suitcase-size (1.4m x 0.8m x 0.4m. ; mass 75 kg) powered by solar panels; oriented by miniature reaction wheels and magnetorquers. Attitude control to within 10 arcseconds

6 NEOSSat Mission Concept of Operations Three S-band stations are located in St. Hubert, Saskatoon, and DRDC Ottawa to allow the NEOSSat team receive data from the microsat at 2 Mbps (S-Band). St. Hubert will be the main Missions Operations Center. NESS Science Operation Centers (SOC) (Calgary, AL) HEOSS Science Operation Centers (SOC) (DRDC Ottawa, ON) Mission Planning System (MPS) (St Hubert, QC) CSA Mission Operation Centre (MOC) (St Hubert, QC) MDA Ground Station (St Hubert, QC) MDA Ground Station (Saskatoon, SA) NEOSSat (Low-Earth Orbit) Science users will direct their taskings via Mission Planning Systems to the MOC ground station to be up loaded. Joint Space Operation Center (JSpOC) (Vanderberg AFB, CA) CSSS Sensor System Operation Center (SSOC) (CFB, North Bay, ON) DRDC Mission Operation Center (DRDC Ottawa, ON) DRDC Ground Station (GS) (DRDC Ottawa, ON)

7 NEOSSat Mission Status Project is presently in the development phase (Phase D) Spacecraft Test Readiness Review (TRR) will be held in December 2011 Target launch in Q At least a 1-year mission after commissioning and a goal of 2 years.

8 Satellite Operations CRAMS (Conjunction Risk Assessment and Mitigation System), CSA s automated conjunction analysis system is operational since Sept 2011 Autonomously process conjunction messages to produce & distribute: Probability of collision Maneuver Trade Space Collision Avoidance Box Depth of intrusion Visualization Satellites screened: Radarsat-1 Radarsat-2 SCISAT MOST* Value-Added Data JSpOC R2 Alert TCA: :27: IN THE BOX CURRENT JSpOC CSM ( ) received at :37 - TCA : :27: (1.07 days from now) - Objects : R2 with COSMOS_2251_DEB - Angles : Approach/Velocity: deg - Radial : IN THE BOX (Miss: 13.1m, Box: 126.8m) - In-Track : IN THE BOX (Miss: 58.5m, Box: 542.9m) - Cross-Track: IN THE BOX (Miss: 172.7m, Box: 404.8m) - Overall : IN THE BOX (Miss: 182.0m) - DOI : 3.391m (No concern based on DOI) - PoC(0) : e-002 (STK (Numeric)) - PoC(1) : e-002 (STK (Analytic)) - PoC(2) : e-002 (STK Max Collision Probability) Excel filename: R2-COSMOS_2251_DEB.xls

9 12 10 Number of Recent Canadian Satellite Close Encounters with Debris Radarsat 1 Warning O c c u r e n c e s Radarsat 1 Maneuver Radarsat 2 Warning Radarsat 2 Maneuver Scisat 1 Warning Year as of September

10 Space Situational Awareness Tool 10

11 Protection from Debris Hyper-Velocity Impact (HVI) Technologies Courtesy of Dr. Vincent Tanguay, DRDC Valcartier

12 HVI Launchers: Hyper-Velocity Impact (HVI) Technologies to better understand debris damage Two stage light gas guns: 100 g projectiles at speeds of 8 to 10 km/s (UNB/HIT Dynamics) 250 g at speeds up to 4.2 km/s (DRDC) McGill U./DRDC Technology based on two stage implosiondriven launcher: 1 to 10 g projectiles at speeds up to 8 km/s and beyond.

13 New Technologies offering Protection from Debris & Repair CSA funded studies on: Self-healing microcapsules embedded successfully within Carbon Fibers Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) by Concordia University and MPB Technologies CFRP panels with self-healing agent tested with a launcher (McGill U.) simulating space debris impact simulation (using 3.0 to 12.5 mm diameter aluminium projectiles at speeds of 1.3 to 4.5 km/s ) These panels are also instrumented with MPB fiber optic sensors embedded in the structure to measure the temperature and strain changes due to debris impact Concept from University of Illinois (Urbana US) [White 2001]) Self healing effective in this area (delamination and microcracks) Microcracks filled with self-healing agent

14 Active Debris Removal (ADR) CSA continues to support Gov. of Canada evaluation of Canadian Industry (MDA) proposal for strategic funding of their on-orbit refuelling demonstration mission. This mission has direct application to active removal of debris in GEO. Gov. of Canada also evaluating regulatory environment surrounding on-orbit servicing and active debris removal. There is a clear need for an explicit licensing regime. CSA is funding two Concept Studies (~250K each) to assess potential applications of on-orbit robotics technologies to the active removal of a large tumbling defunct spacecraft (debris) in LEO.

15 ADR based on Operations System Heritage In Space Robotics CSA has delivered 3 state-of-the-art robotic systems for operational use in Low Earth Orbit: the STS (US-Shuttle) Canadarm, the ISS Canadarm2 and Dextre. Demonstrating the following on-orbit capabilities: Assembly, Inspection, Payload handling, Capture and Berthing, Cooperative Servicing, EVA Support,Robotic Servicing,Change-out of On-orbit Replaceable Units (ORUs)

16 Orbital Debris Remediation Concept Studies Two CSA funded Space Exploration concept studies examine use of space robotics to contribute to remediation of large debris : Start: October End: March 2012 Clear Sky Team: MDA, Bristol Aerospace, UTIAS, Cyber & Space Telecom Inc, Mafic MODEL Team: COMDEV, Neptec, NGC Aerospace Ltd, ESI Automation and Robotics

17 ODR Concept Study Summary Objective Develop a feasible and cost-effective mission concept based on robotic technology for removing orbital debris objects from LEO and other useful Earth orbits. Scope The studies will address key aspects of an orbital debris removal mission. The mission will consider removal of 3 medium to large debris objects per year, for ten years. Review of space debris environment and clean up Operations concept Mission requirements and analysis Propulsion systems Guidance, navigation and control systems Sensors and instruments Robotic arm and capture mechanisms Autonomy and fault tolerance Ground control and communication Self de-orbit Business opportunity Feasibility assessment

18 Next Generation Canadarm (NGC) NGC will advance the technologies needed to: safely dock with future non-operating or defunct spacecraft Potentially extend the life of satellites Potentially mate and change orbits of defunct spacecraft

19 CSA Vision Guided Robot To Capture and Stabilize a Tumbling Space Object The space manipulator is equipped with a grappling device and guided by a vision system Challenge: The target is non-cooperative with uncertain dynamics and most likely has tumbling motion Developed methodology: Learning phase: Estimation of the pose, velocity, and inertia parameters of the target from vision data Pre-grasping phase: Guidance of the robot to intercept the target at a rendezvous point with zero relative velocity (no impact) Post-grasping phase: Cooperative control of servicer spacecraft and manipulator to dump the angular momentum of the target

20 Testbed Facilities at CSA Laboratory Docking testbed: Two manipulators simulate the relative motion of the target and spacemanipulator according to orbital mechanics Scaled model of the Quicksat Neptec laser camera system Zero-G satellite simulator in threedimensional environment

21 ISS Demonstrations of Key Technologies Shuttle-based NEPTEC Tridar Rendez-vous Sensor Demonstration Station-based Rendez-vous and Inspection System Demonstration Dextre Tool Demos (TBC) MSS Automation Demos (TBC)