A Statistical Leo Model to Investigate Adaptable Debris Control Strategies

Several strategies have been implemented or proposed to tackle the space debris problem. However, there is still debate on the feasibility, cost and effectiveness of these mitigation measures, especially in light of the increasing use of small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and the drive towards space debris remediation. This work presents a statistical source-sink debris evolutionary model of the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with an innovative feedback proportional controller on Active Debris Removal (ADR). The analysis presented here demonstrates that a proportional adaptive strategy that locally optimises the removal rate performs always better than a globallyoptimised removal rate strategy in terms of total number of collisions, number of removal and end populations, lowering the end population and collisions respectively up to 14.09% and 13.24%.