Space Debries Decay Estimation Software using Open-Source Libraries

Abstract

After more than 50 years of satellite and exploration spacecraft launches, the region above Earth between 100 and 2000 Km (also known as the LEO region) has become crowded with objects. Inevitably, due to Earth’s gravity force and atmosphere, all those objects will fall back to the ground. A large part of the objects will burn into the atmosphere, but some parts might reach the surface. While this is not a problem for the controlled objects which can be guided to land in uninhabited areas, the uncontrolled objects can land anywhere. The exact prediction of the impact point for those objects is extremely difficult as it depends on several variables and is usually performed by the Space Agencies using in-house software. However, the prediction of the short-term trajectory and the time intervals when the objects fly over some regions can be computed with a fair accuracy. This paper presents a software that uses open-source libraries to estimate short-term trajectories for the orbital objects which pose an imminent risk of deorbitation and define the time intervals when they are flying over areas of interest.