Analyzing Space Debris Flux and Predicting Satellites Collision Probability in LEO Orbits Based on Petri Nets

Space debris is rapidly becoming a real challenge and a serious threat for satellites and spacecraft motion. Most of these debris moves so fast, especially in the low earth orbits (LEOs) and so quickly that these debris can collide and penetrate the structure of the spacecraft and crash with the satellites. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) expects that there will be an increase in the number of space particles in LEO orbits of 75% over the next 200 years if the space debris reduction measures are not followed. In this paper, we introduce the Petri net model for simulating the space debris flux estimation in the satellite orbits with respect to different debris sizes. Moreover, another Petri net model is introduced for investigating the impacts of debris flux on predicting the satellite collision probabilities. The analysis results show that there are negative correlations of the debris flux growth with the debris size d and the solar radio flux F
_10.7
. Moreover, the results clarify that the satellites in the LEO orbit at altitudes (h) of 600 km <; h <; 1000 km and the inclination angles (i) of 900 <; i <; 1000 cm are expected to experience more frequent collisions by 2030.