Awards & Nominations
Mün has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Global Nominee
Debris Sequencer
High-Level Project Summary
We extended and improved an existing satellite orbit visualization tool to visualize space debris around the Earth, in order to aid debris removal efforts. On selecting a debris object, the tool provides the name and location of the next closest debris object that can be reached based on a approximate orbital transfer cost metric. We expect the tool to be used in the planning phase of upcoming orbital debris removal missions, and also as an educational tool that helps visualize orbit transfers that minimize fuel costs.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
The Debris Sequencer pulls information of currently tracked debris objects from the CelesTrak database in real time, and subsequently visualizes the location of all tracked objects. Upon clicking any debris object, the tool visualizes its orbit, and highlights the location of the next nearest debris object that can be accessed based on the approximate orbital transfer cost. This is done computing the relative inclination between the selected debris object and all other tracked objects, and using that as the ‘orbital transfer metric’ for each pair. The tool then returns the object with the smallest value for the metric, corresponding to the least expensive orbit transfer.
Since the tool pulls real time information from the CelesTrak database, it is automatically updated with any changes to debris orbit properties or new debris objects. Since the tool is written in JavaScript, it is platform agnostic and runs within any modern browser.
The tool was written primarily in JavaScript, with HTML/CSS being used to display some of the page elements.
Space Agency Data
We used the CelesTrak database (http://www.celestrak.com/) to obtain two line element (TLE) set orbital properties of various debris objects tracked by NORAD in the near-Earth environment
Hackathon Journey
This work was inspired by competitions such as ‘The Global Trajectory Optimization Competition 2017’, where teams were invited to find optimal solutions to rendezvous and deorbiting debris while optimizing for fuel consumption and mission duration. As governmental organizations (e.g., NASA/ESA/JAXA), along with commercial entities (e.g. Astroscale/RocketLab) ramp up their efforts to clean up space junk, finding optimal solutions that maximize the mission output is of critical importance. The members of this team have previously collaborated to solve similar problems, and approached this Space Apps experience with the goal of developing a practical visual tool that aids with debris removal.
ELEVATOR PITCH:
As you are well aware, the amount of space debris is reaching alarming levels, with over 100 million pieces of debris estimated to be orbiting the Earth.
If the growth of space debris is not mitigated soon, a runaway collision scenario known as the Kessler Syndrome is predicted to occur, which poses a threat to current space operations and could even limit our access to space in the future.
We present “Debris Sequencer (Gotta de-orbit them all!)”.
This tool not only displays the locations of known debris objects in real time, but goes a step further and offers a literal path forward for cleaning them up.
First, we choose one of the many debris objects that we would like to de-orbit.
After we click on it, the closest debris object (in terms of relative orbital inclination) is displayed.
The next closest object, and then the next, are displayed in the proper sequence.
This provides a sequence for a deorbiting spacecraft to target each debris object one by one in order to de-orbit them in a very efficient manner in terms of total orbital transfer cost.
The positions of all the debris objects use real-time TLE data from Celestrak, and to get the closest object, we compute the relative inclination between the selected object and all the remaining objects, based on the orbital transfer metric given by Izzo et al. (2015).
We hope that our Debris Sequencer tool can help raise awareness of the extremely important problem of space debris and work as a step toward helping humanity solve it. This will make space a safer place, and ensure continued access for the future.
References
https://github.com/dsuarezv/satellite-tracker
http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/
Izzo, Dario, et al. "Evolving solutions to TSP variants for active space debris removal." Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. 2015.
Tags
#software #opensource #spacedebris #spacetrash #kesslersyndrome #kessler
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.