16-23-3164-vl Space Debris - Risks, Surveillance and Mitigation

Instructors: Dr. Ing. Holger Krag

Event type: Lecture

Org-unit: Dept. 16 - Mechanical Engineering

Displayed in timetable as: Space Debris

Subject:

Crediting for:

Hours per week: 2

Language of instruction: Englisch

Min. | Max. participants: - | -

Digital Teaching:
The course will be held in attendance in SoSe 2022.

Course Contents:
This lecture will provide the scientific, technical and operational background in relation to the sources, surveillance and mitigation of space debris.  This covers risk assessment aspects: source and sink terms, particle flux models, aerodynamics and aerothermal aspects during atmospheric re-entry and related on-ground risk assessments;  all major aspects of space surveillance: ground-based radar and telescope systems, orbit determination methods (batch least square, Levenberg-Marquardt, Kalmanfilter), residuals, covariances, operational collision avoidance; As well as space debris mitigation aspects: long-term environment projection models, international guidelines, passivation methods, shielding concepts, methods for post mission disposal and verification of measures;

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

1. Name the sources of space debris and describe the human-made particle environment and the consequences of particle impacts;
   
2. Analyse and determine the risks to a space mission due the natural and human-made particle environment and limit this this risk by suitable technical measures;
   
3. Determine the on-ground risk caused by the atmospheric re-entry of a space object;
   
4. Lay-out a space mission according to applicable space debris mitigation guidelines and verify the resulting setup along with international standards;
   
5. Perform the main tasks of flight dynamics in operations (orbit determination and manoeuvreplanning) and explain the operational processes in the context of collision avoidance;
   
6. Present the main technical aspects of space surveillance, lay-out the required sensor systems and apply the related computational methods;
   

Literature:

• The book Space Debris: Models and Risk Analysis by H. Klinkrad is available in the holdings of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (ULB) and as an eBook at the link: https://hds.hebis.de/ulbda/Record/HEB192059467.
  
• The book A Method for the Validation of Space Debris Models and for the Analysis and Planning of Radar and Optical Surveys by H. Krag is available in the holdings of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (ULB) under the link: https://hds.hebis.de/ulbda/Record/HEB121585603.
  
• Furthermore, you can find Space Debris videos from ESA via the following link: http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Sets/Space_debris_playlist/(result_type)/videos
  

Preconditions:
Knowledge of the content of „Space Flight Mechanics” (module no. 16-25-5130) is an asset but not a pre-requisite.

Expected Number of Participants:
80

Additional Information:
Lecturer is Dr.-Ing. H. Krag (Head of the Space Safety Programme Office - ESA/ ESOC)

Online Offerings:
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