Affordable Debris Removal and Collection in LEO - Star Technology ...

63 rd International Astronautical Congress, Naples, Italy. Copyright ©2012 by Jerome Pearson.
All rights reserved. Published by the IAF with permission, and released to the IAF to publish in all forms.
III. WHOLESALE DEBRIS REMOVAL
CAMPAIGN
There are two distinct types of collisions that we
really should distinguish: collisions between large
objects that create lots of shrapnel but may not involve
immediate asset losses, if both objects are debris, and
expensive lethal collisions of mostly untracked
shrapnel with high-value assets years to decades later.
EDDE protects future assets by greatly reducing
future production of shrapnel.
We considered three different options for LEO
debris removal campaigns. The goal of the first
campaign is the wholesale removal of all large debris
in LEO. Our recent analysis in Acta Astronautica 8
concluded that a dozen EDDE vehicles can remove all
large debris from LEO in about 7 years. They can all
be launched on one ESPA ring (two per slot), but our
analysis shows that phased deployment has
advantages. Two EDDE vehicles can be launched
every year and retired after 5 years of service. In 9
years of operation, 2,000 tons of large legacy debris
and 97% of the collision-generated debris potential in
LEO can be removed at an average cost of less than
$400 per kg and an average annual cost of less than
$90M. The progression of this campaign is illustrated
in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Debris Removal Campaign 1
In years 1-8, we build 2 EDDE vehicles per year
and launch them the year after they are built. We
reach a peak of 10 EDDEs in orbit in year 6. In year
7, we start retiring 2 vehicles per year after 5 years of
service, as they finish removing the bulk of the
existing large debris.
We do not plan to go after the largest debris
objects in the beginning, because we need to gain
experience and perfect the removal operations. We
will gradually increase the limit on the size of the
debris objects from 1.5 tons in year 2 to 3 tons in year
4, with no limit after that. In years 2-6, we work on
removing the upper stages from the high-inclination
clusters. We start removing defunct satellites in year
7. Smaller debris objects are removed mostly in the
second half of the campaign. To estimate throughput,
we add 20% time margins on all operations. On top of
that, we assume 80% capacity utilization in the first
year, increasing 5% each year until it reaches 95%.
This debris removal campaign results in a major
reduction of the debris-generation potential within 10
years. After that, EDDE debris removal efforts would
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