In low Earth orbit(LEO), over a million of small/medium space debris objects are estimated to exist. A laser-based active debris removal for such objects has been proposed. One challenging problem of this method is to focus a high power laser on the debris surface. If the laser is irradiated from the ground, the target is 400 km above and flies at 8 km/s. To solve this problem, highly accurate orbit prediction is necessary. In addition, it must also be ensured that the debris will fall to Earth certainly within a short period of time after deorbiting. In the presentation, we will describe analytical methods for trajectory calculations to answer these questions and show some specific results. Our analysis method guarantees that the laser will always be able to focus on the debris surface. For example, a computational method is realized which confines the orbital prediction error can be less than 1 cm within 10 seconds after finding the debris.In low Earth orbit(LEO), over a million of small/medium space debris objects are estimated to exist. A laser-based active debris removal for such objects has been proposed. One challenging problem of this method is to focus a high power laser on the debris surface. If the laser is irradiated from the ground, the target is 400 km above and flies at 8 km/s. To solve this problem, highly accurate orbit prediction is necessary. In addition, it must also be ensured that the debris will fall to Earth certainly within a short period of time after deorbiting. In the presentation, we will describe analytical methods for trajectory calculations to answer these questions and show some specific results. Our analysis method guarantees that the laser will always be able to focus on the debris surface. For example, a computational method is realized which confines the orbital prediction error can be less than 1 cm within 10 seconds after finding the debris.
Shibata et al. (Fri,) studied this question.