Orbital Remediation

Orbital debris proliferation is one of the most challenging aerospace societal problems of our generation. In 2021, my team began working on active debris removal, using a team of autonomous satellites to find and mechanically remediate small hypersonic debris items that we can’t currently track with ground-based radar.  We’re grateful for US Space Force investment in this societal mission.

Why small debris?

In 2025, over man-made 10,000 satellites orbit the earth, complemented by 30,000 debris items large enough (>10cm, or about the size of a softball) to be trackable on ground based radar.  These objects would cause catastrophic fragmentation of an entire spacecraft.

There are an estimated 130 million items between the size of 1mm and 1cm, and 13 million between 1cm and 10cm.  A 1cm object would typically disable a spacecraft (including penetrating the ISS shields), while 1mm debris would typically disable a subsystem.

Although these mm and cm-scale debris pose a significant hazard, current space systems remain blind to them until they impact the satellite.  mm and cm-scale debris are thus the dominant population, hazardous, and unmeasured, providing an unmeasured threat to orbital proliferation.

Our approach:

Our technology works to mechanically remediate this debris population.  Our mission analysis work identified the key orbits for cleanup based on societal relevance.  We developed on-board perception suites to identify long range debris, and a measurement campaign to validate the above debris population estimates.

Once debris is within range, our impactor shield mechanically interdicts the debris population to passivate the debris item through vaporization, de-energization, fragmentation, and collection.  To accomplish this, we developed and tested a new class of debris shield that integrates these effects.  In addition to the smallsat demonstration mission, we have also designed a supporting cubesat mission that provides measurement of these debris populations.

This approach makes possible a future in which we move from a practice of individual shielding to large scale orbital cleanup through integrated passivation.