Prioritizing Orbital Debris for Active Debris Removal Missions

This paper introduces a method of prioritizing orbital debris for future active debris removal missions, based on the evaluation of the total collision probability of each cataloged debris. The United States Space Surveillance Network actively monitors, tracks, and catalogs space debris orbiting Earth. The catalog is updated routinely, and is available to the public in the form of two-line element data. The total collision probability of a debris is defined as the overall probability of the debris colliding with any other debris in a given time window. The proposed method uses the two-line element data pertaining to each debris in the catalog to project the future state of the debris, i.e., the classical orbital elements, at predefined time steps for a given time window. The effects of orbital perturbations are considered wherever applicable. The relative distances between all debris are estimated in each time step, and pairwise collision probabilities are calculated for any two debris objects in the catalog. To obtain the total collision probability for a debris, the pairwise collision probabilities pertaining to the debris are summed. Further, for every debris object the trend in the total collision probability as the time window progresses is quantified, and debris objects are ranked based on their chance of collision in the time window. The outcome of the study is compared with target debris proposed in other studies.