Experimental Investigation of Orbital Debris Soliton Generation

Half a century of human exploration and exploitation of the near-earth space environment has resulted in an exponential growth of orbital debris, which now threatens assured continuous access to space. Serious malfunction or disabling of critical on-orbit satellite systems or sensors can result from a collision with a debris fragment traveling at hypervelocity speeds. Hence, collision avoidance with orbital debris is essential for survival of satellites. Optical tracking of the small sub-centimeter size debris is difficult at best, but according to NASA, a collision with even a millimeter-size debris at orbital speed is mission ending. Therefore, innovative detection techniques are needed for accurate tracking of the debris distribution and timely implementation of collision avoidance maneuvers to protect satellites.