Global investment in space assets stands at around $900 billion. These assets are at serious risk from over 300,000 items of space debris in earth orbit. Collisions involve impact velocities of over 20,000 km an hour, making a 5mm piece of debris a significant threat to satellites and other infrastructure in space. Considerable damage to satellites occurs each year and there is now so much debris in space that it is colliding with itself, creating more debris, and so making an already big problem even bigger. Only 30,000 of the 300,000 pieces of orbiting debris which are larger than 5mm can be monitored currently.
SERC is addressing the challenges in managing space debris and preserving the space environment through four research programs:
Program 1: Identification of Space Objects and Preservation of the Space Environment
Professor Craig Smith, Chief Executive Officer EOS Space Systems is the leader for this program which is developing solutions for reliable and accurate observation and tracking of space objects, better monitoring and cataloguing of space debris, orbit conjunction analysis and collision mitigation. more ➠
Program 2: Orbit Determination and Predicting Behaviours of Space Objects
This program is under the leadership of Dr Robert Norman of the RMIT Space Research Centre. This is developing new tools to improve the accuracy and reliability of orbit predictions, including the development of new models for atmospheric mass density and earth gravitational field influence. more ➠
Program 3: Space Asset Management
Dr James Bennett of the Space Environment Research Centre leads this program which focuses on developing techniques, algorithms and databases to assist in predicting and thus avoiding potential collisions in space. more ➠
Program 4: Space Segment
Led by Lockheed Martin’s Mr Matthew Bold, this program is developing link equations and models for engaging space objects from earth, leading to an on-orbit demonstration of debris movement with lasers. more ➠
