Space debris executive summary

Spacecraft, boosters, and fragments are potential hazards to space vehicles, and it is argued that collisions between them could produce a cascade that could preclude activity in LEO in 25 to 50 years. That has generated pressure for constraints on military space operations, so the AF SAB performed a study of technical aspects of the debris problem. The Study was independent of the efforts of the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) as well as those of and NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), which is the principal advocate for cascades and constraints. Most work on space debris has been performed by AFSPC and JSC, so the Study was in part an assessment of their efforts, in which both have been cooperative. The Study identified the main disagreements and quantified their impacts. It resolved some issues and provided bounds for the rest. It treated radar and optical observations; launch, explosion, and decay rates; and the number and distribution of fragments from explosions and collisions. That made it possible to address hazard to manned spacecraft at low altitudes and the possibility of cascading at higher altitudes, both of which now appear less likely.