Deflection of dangerous middle-size LEO debris with autonomous space-based laser brooms via surgical actions

Abstract

There is a consensus that the increasingly large number of LEO debris objects represents a major threat to both active and defunct satellites and that means a potential runaway collisional cascading. This problem urgently demands to be addressed immediately, since the number of satellites in LEO is also dramatically increasing. Many active space debris removal programs have been proposed and those based on using laser from space appear to be really promising, taking into account that one of the most challenging issues from the orbital standpoint is to guarantee the appropriate accuracy for the laser beams that are shot from space-based LEO trackers. In this work, we propose how to build up space-based laser brooms consisting of a significant number of autonomous LEO trackers aimed at performing surgical local shooting actions to deflect the most dangerous middle-size debris objects into the Atmosphere by means of laser ablation. The precision of these brooms lies in the use of the post-Newtonian equations for the computation of absolute and relative positions and velocities, as well as ranges.