Schildknecht, Thomas; Silha, Jiri; Pittet, Jean-Noël; Rachman, Abdul (November 2017). Attitude states of space debris determined from optical light curve observations (Unpublished). In: 1st IAA Conference on Space Situational Awareness (ICSSA). Orlando, Florida. November 13-15, 2017.
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The population of space debris increased drastically during the last years. Collisions
involving massive objects may produce large number of fragments leading to
significantly growth of the space debris population. An effective remediation measure
in order to stabilize the population in LEO is therefore the removal of large, massive
space debris. To remove these objects, not only precise orbits, but also more
detailed information about their attitude states will be required. One important
property of an object targeted for removal is its spin period and spin axis orientation.
Non-resolving optical observations of the magnitude variations, so-called light
curves, are a promising technique to determine rotation or tumbling rates and the
orientations of the actual rotation axis of objects, as well as their temporal changes.
Acquiring such observations as well extracting attitude states from these measurements is challenging and requires sophisticated observations and
processing techniques. The paper will introduce the corresponding techniques and
methods used at the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB). The 1-meter telescope ZIMLAT of the AIUB is used to collect light curves of LEO, MEO and GEO objects on a regular basis. Recently, Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) observations of rotating LEO targets were acquired as well. We will present spin rates and their temporal evolution for a large set of decommissioned LEO, MEO and HEO spacecraft and upper stages, including more than 60 abandoned GLONASS satellites. These results were derived from more than 2000 light curves and several hundred SLR passes.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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Division/Institute: |
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Astronomy |
UniBE Contributor: |
Schildknecht, Thomas, Silha, Jiri, Pittet, Jean-Noël, Rachman, Abdul |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 520 Astronomy |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Alessandro Vananti |
Date Deposited: |
08 Dec 2017 08:53 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:08 |
BORIS DOI: |
10.7892/boris.106946 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/106946 |
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