Engineering and technology challenges for active debris removal

NASA Orbital Debris Program Office 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Texas 77058, USA

Abstract

After more than fifty years of space activities, the near-Earth environment is polluted with man-made orbital debris. The collision between Cosmos 2251 and the operational Iridium 33 in 2009 signaled a potential collision cascade effect, also known as the “Kessler Syndrome”, in the environment. Various modeling studies have suggested that the commonlyadopted mitigation measures will not be sufficient to stabilize the future debris population. Active debris removal (ADR) must be considered to remediate the environment. This paper summarizes the key issues associated with debris removal and describes the technology and engineering challenges to move forward.