Paul McCall (Florida International University)
Keywords: Space Debris
Abstract:
Space debris has long been a problem for the United States as well as other space-faring nations. The proliferation of space debris in the last decade has brought us closer to dealing with such problems through means of active debris removal. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network tracks over 22,000 pieces of debris 10cm or larger. However, experts believe there to exist many times this amount of debris that cannot be tracked or detected due to its size, material properties, and orbits. The characterization of space debris is important because an understanding of the structure, mass, and material properties may help researchers to further extract needed information regarding the orbit and origination of such debris. To this end the broad scope of this research is focused on the Long-wave Infrared signatures of space debris. In order to calculate and model the LWIR signatures of such debris, in orbits between low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit, a relative and accurate thermal model must be developed.
Date of Conference: September 10-13, 2013
Track: Poster