LightForce Photon-Pressure Collision Avoidance: Updated Efficiency Analysis Utilizing a Highly Parallel Simulation Approach

Abstract

This paper provides an updated efficiency analysis of the LightForce space debris collision avoidance scheme. LightForce aims to prevent collisions on warning by utilizing photon pressure from ground based, commercial off the shelf lasers. Past research has shown that a few ground-based systems consisting of 10 kW class lasers directed by 1.5 m telescopes with adaptive optics could lower the expected number of collisions in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) by an order of magnitude. Our simulation approach utilizes the entire Two Line Element (TLE) catalogue in LEO for a given day as initial input. Least-squares fitting of a TLE time series is used for an improved orbit estimate. We then calculate the probability of collision for all LEO objects in the catalogue for a time step of the simulation. The conjunctions that exceed a threshold probability of collision are then engaged by a simulated network of laser ground stations. After those engagements, the perturbed orbits are used to re-assess the probability of collision and evaluate the efficiency of the system. This paper describes new simulations with three updated aspects: 1) By utilizing a highly parallel simulation approach employing hundreds of processors, we have extended our analysis to a much broader dataset. The simulation time is extended to one year. 2) We analyze not only the efficiency of LightForce on conjunctions that naturally occur, but also take into account conjunctions caused by orbit perturbations due to LightForce engagements. 3) We use a new simulation approach that is regularly updating the LightForce engagement strategy, as it would be during actual operations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA624166

Entities

People

  • Andrew Nuttall
  • Bron Nelson
  • Chris Henze
  • Creon Levit
  • Cyrus Foster
  • Fan Y. Yang
  • Jan Stupl
  • Jonathan Aziz
  • Nicolas Faber

Organizations

  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Adaptive Optics
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Collisions
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Directed Energy Weapons
  • Earth Orbits
  • Ground Based
  • Ground Stations
  • Low Earth Orbits
  • Optics
  • Orbits
  • Simulations
  • Solar Radiation
  • Space Debris
  • Space Objects
  • Stations
  • Temperature Gradients

Fields of Study

  • Engineering
  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.
  • Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Space
  • Space - Orbital Debris
  • Space - Space Objects