In this day and age, we have travelled off of the planet and are utilizing space outside of our planetary sphere. Satellites now have a daily impact on our lives, from GPS positioning and timing to airplane communications.[1] However, the quantity of space debris is increasing at a rapid rate, and it's becoming dangerous for satellites and spacecraft to orbit in the are around Earth.[2] The situation is an exponential increase of debris threatening a billion dollar infrastructure network: NASA predicts that even with no new launches from Earth, the 10cm and larger debris field will still increase due to collisions. [3] Some debris are moving at 18,000 miles an hour, barreling through space and colliding with other debris moving at such quick speeds, which in turn creates more debris. [4] If this cycle continues, humanity may be trapped in a cage of debris moving at incredible speeds, tearing apart anything that tries to enter low earth orbit.
Solution
In a response to the ever-increasing space debris around our globe, we are going to model paths of orbital debris, and then track their paths until they collide. Orbital debris will follow an orbit that approximates a Keplarian orbit (or a planetary orbit), as the objects are traveling at high speeds and the Earth is the dominant gravitational body. We will complete this by modelling Keplerian orbits using MATLAB.
After orbital modelling is complete, we will model collisions and interactions of space debris. This is a crucial step, as space debris can be extremely dangerous and damaging to spacecraft. We will then display the debris paths and their likely collisions as well as the estimated paths after their collisions.
Current Progress
We have begun using MATLAB and the Sensor Fusion and Tracking Toolbox to model Keplerian Orbits. [5] Using code from this tool, we will be able to accurately model the paths and collision risks of simulated space debris. Using these orbits, we will be able to attempt to predict collision events, and forecast the damage caused by them.
Predicted Results
Using our simulation, we suspect that trials will show that collisions will be relatively rare (it's still a lot of space), but when they eventually do happen, they will be catastrophic, as two high-velocity, not massless objects will be impacting each other. When running these simulations, we plan to use randomized data. If it turns out that collisions are so extremely rare that we will not be able to observe many "natural" collisions, we will then adjust two objects so that they are on the course to impact one another. We will verify our model using past collisions. If our model appears to be accurate, actual objects could be entered into it, and we could effectively model the debris in our sky.