The final decision will be different for each spacecraft because the hazard, acceptable risk, and cost of protection will vary depending on the spacecraft's orbit, configuration, and particular mission. To protect their spacecraft against debris impact must involve balancing the risk and cost of damage from debris impact against the expense of implementing measures to protect against debris. Although large uncertainties still remain, an improved understanding of the debris environment, combined with the growing availability of analytic and experimental tools to quantify the threat to a spacecraft from debris and the development of techniques to protect against debris impacts, now makes it feasible for designers to assess the debris hazard and protect their spacecraft appropriately.įor spacecraft designers and operators, the decision whether and how In the past, most spacecraft designers did not consider the debris hazard as a design consideration, due perhaps to a general lack of awareness of the threat, the low level of the perceived hazard, or an unwillingness to undertake the seemingly large research task of quantifying the risk and determining appropriate means to protect their spacecraft. In any case, spacecraft designers and operators will have to deal with a debris hazard far into the future. ![]() If measures to reduce the creation of new debris are not taken, the debris hazard in many orbits will increase (as discussed in Chapter 8). The result is that even if measures are taken to minimize the creation of new debris, a debris hazard to spacecraft will exist for many years in most orbits. Therefore, the only foreseeable significant reductions in the debris population will be those caused by orbital decay. ![]() Although a few measures to reduce the creation of new debris already have been taken, and it appears likely that more will follow, these efforts generally aim at averting major increases in-rather than actually reducing-the future debris population. As shown in Chapter 4, orbital debris poses a potential hazard to spacecraft in Earth orbit.
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