Space Debris Elimination (SpaDE)

The amount of debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) has increased rapidly over the last twenty years. This prevalence of debris increases the likelihood of cascading collisions that cause the debris generation rate to outstrip the rate at which debris deorbits, falling into the atmosphere and burning up. This accumulation creates debris belts that render many orbits unusable. Current strategies emphasize debris mitigation, as there is no practical method for debris removal. Raytheon BBN Technologies (BBN) and the University of Michigan will study the Space Debris Elimination (SpaDE) system to remove debris from orbit by firing focused pulses of atmospheric gases into the path of targeted debris. These pulses will increase drag sufficiently to cause the deorbit rate to exceed the debris generation rate. The pulses themselves will fall back into the atmosphere, leaving no residual trace in orbit to interfere with LEO satellites. In contrast to other proposed methods, SpaDE is failsafe, in that it places no solid material in orbit where a malfunction could create new debris. This project will conduct technology risk reduction analyses and modeling. The research will produce an academic paper and presentation describing the technical results and providing the foundation for future work, to include prototyping, field experiments and ultimately deployment of a SpaDE system.

SpaDE represents an unusual concept of operations in that it would be capable of addressing the problem of debris too small to be tracked by ground-based radar and yet large enough to damage or destroy space craft. SpaDE also would have the capability to address debris fields, acting to clear a volume of space without the possibility of the fratricidal generation of debris belts.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 2) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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