Development of an Open-Source Toolbox for Design and Analysis of Active Debris Remediation Architectures
Abstract
Orbital Debris is a growing challenge for the Space Industry. The increasing density of derelict objects in high-value orbital regimes is resulting in more conjunction warnings and break-up events with cascading repercussions on active satellites and spacecraft. The recent rapid growth of the commercial space industry, in particular proliferated satellite constellations, has placed orbital debris remediation at the forefront of Space Industry efforts.The need to remove existing debris, combined with a growing demand for active satellite life extension services, has created an emerging market for space logistics, in particular spacecraft capable of rendezvous and docking, orbital refueling, debris deorbiting, or object relocation. This market has seen numerous companies emerge with multi-purpose on-orbit servicing platforms. This ecosystem poses technological, economical, and policy questions to decision-makers looking to acquire platforms or invest in technologies and requires a System-of-Systems approach to determine mission and system concepts of merit.An open-source modeling, analysis, and simulation software toolbox has been developed which enables rapid early-stage analysis and design of diverse fleets of on-orbit servicing platforms, with a specific emphasis on active debris removal applications. The toolbox provides fetching and processing of real-time orbital catalog data, clustering and scoring of high-value debris targets, flexible and efficient multi-vehicle multi-objective time-varying routing optimization, and fleet-level lifecycle cost estimation. The toolbox is applied to a diverse sample of promising commercial platforms to enable government decision-makers to make sound investment and acquisition decisions to support the development of ADR technologies, missions, and companies.
Degree
M.Sc.
Advisors
Guariniello, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Aerospace engineering|Artificial intelligence|Industrial engineering|Transportation
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