Short-Term Debris Risk to Large Satellite Constellations

A debris collision hazard analysis is carried out on a large 800-satellite constellation, representative of the initial Teledesic cone guration, using the Space Debris Simulation (SDS) software. Usage of the software focuses on the short- to medium-term effects of explosive and collision-induced breakups. Two potentially constellationthreatening scenarios are considered: 1 ) constellation member fragmentation and 2 ) constellation launch-vehicle breakup. The constellation collision probability and the debris impact-energy to target-mass ratio are used as indicatorsoftheseverityoftherisk posed totheconstellation.Itisfound that,inthecaseinvestigated,thecollisional risk to the constellation is low in the short term. Of the scenarios examined, it is the collision-induced breakup of a constellation satellite that poses the greatest danger, in terms of the possibility of a secondary fragmentation. The SDS software is proven to be a useful tool in the analysis of the short-term, relative threat posed by debris impact to large constellation systems.