A statistical analysis of the future debris environment

Abstract Modeling the future orbital debris environment is a difficult task. In addition to making reasonable assumptions on key parameters such as future launch traffic and solar activity projections, one needs to rely on a Monte Carlo approach to evaluate potential future on-orbit explosions and collisions. Even with the same input parameters, the outcome of the projected debris populations could vary significantly from one Monte Carlo run to the next. A common approach to assess the growth of future debris populations is to evaluate the average of multiple Monte Carlo runs. The number of runs is typically between 10 and 30, depending on the speed of the simulation program and the available computer resources. However, the characteristics of the future debris populations may not be fully unveiled by a limited number of Monte Carlo simulations. The main objective of this paper is to analyze results from 200 Monte Carlo simulations of the future debris environment, using the NASA long-term orbital debris evolutionary model LEGEND. The projected debris populations in terms of the mean, median, standard deviation, standard error of the mean, and the distribution of the debris populations at the end of the 100-year projection are analyzed.