Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- SECTION I INTRODUCTION
- SECTION II DEFINING THE PROBLEM
- 2 The Earth Satellite Population: Official Growth and Constituents
- 3 The Current and Future Environment: An Overall Assessment
- 4 The Current and Future Space Debris Environment as Assessed in Europe
- 5 Human Survivability Issues in the Low Earth Orbit Space Debris Environment
- 6 Protecting the Space Environment for Astronomy
- 7 Effects of Space Debris on Commercial Spacecraft – The RADARSAT Example
- 8 Potential Effects of the Space Debris Environment on Military Space Systems
- SECTION III MITIGATION OF AND ADAPTATION TO THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT: TECHNIQUES AND PRACTICES
- SECTION IV ECONOMIC ISSUES
- SECTION V LEGAL ISSUES
- SECTION VI A MULTILATERAL TREATY
- SECTION VII PANEL DISCUSSIONS
5 - Human Survivability Issues in the Low Earth Orbit Space Debris Environment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- SECTION I INTRODUCTION
- SECTION II DEFINING THE PROBLEM
- 2 The Earth Satellite Population: Official Growth and Constituents
- 3 The Current and Future Environment: An Overall Assessment
- 4 The Current and Future Space Debris Environment as Assessed in Europe
- 5 Human Survivability Issues in the Low Earth Orbit Space Debris Environment
- 6 Protecting the Space Environment for Astronomy
- 7 Effects of Space Debris on Commercial Spacecraft – The RADARSAT Example
- 8 Potential Effects of the Space Debris Environment on Military Space Systems
- SECTION III MITIGATION OF AND ADAPTATION TO THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT: TECHNIQUES AND PRACTICES
- SECTION IV ECONOMIC ISSUES
- SECTION V LEGAL ISSUES
- SECTION VI A MULTILATERAL TREATY
- SECTION VII PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Descriptions of the magnitude of the low earth orbit (LEO) meteoroid and debris populations are provided by others at this conference. These populations suggest the existence of a significant orbital debris flux which may endanger the survival and functional success of large, long duration vehicles. LEO debris populations place two interrelated constraints on designers and operators of manned vehicles intended to operate in, or transit, this region. Firstly, survival of manned vehicles and their flight crews requires careful consideration of numerous, and often indirect, failure modes and associated risk mitigation procedures. Secondly, catastrophic failure of a manned vehicle by hypervelocity impact may lead to measurable increases in the debris population, which then place additional risk and cost on other LEO users. For both reasons, the risk to survival of vehicles to be used in LEO for human exploration presents significant new challenges for vehicle managers. This paper presents an overview of the critical issues now being recognized and addressed by manned vehicle designers. It describes some of the elements of the process being used to assess and mitigate the true risks imposed by the low earth orbit space debris environment.
An essential feature of human survival problem in the LEO orbital debris environment is that many of the issues are best presented in probabilistic form. As is well known by conference attendees, the “natural” orbital debris environment is often represented as a plot of cumulative object flux vs size, as is illustrated in Figure 1.
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- Preservation of Near-Earth Space for Future Generations , pp. 56 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994