Course Description

Orbital Debris Mitigation and Reentry Risk Management (APPEL-ODM)

 

Orbital Debris Management & Risk Mitigation iBook now available:
Download iBooks File | PDF File

Audience

This course is designed for NASA project practitioners, mission members, engineers, scientists, and other project support staff who are involved in spacecraft design and operations and interested in orbital debris issues and employing mitigation approaches, including "design for demise."

 

Goal

This two-day course introduces participants to orbital debris environment characterization and mitigation, including characterization and future growth of the orbital debris environment; collision risks; and orbital debris mitigation policies, processes, requirements, and standards. It also explains reentry risks and design-for-demise methodology, including the origin and nature of NASA Human Casualty Reentry Risk assessments and criterion; overviews and applications of NASA Debris Assessment Software (DAS) and Object Reentry Survival Analysis Tool (ORSAT); design-for-demise objectives and experience; and demonstration of DAS reentry risk assessment.

 

Learning Methods

Learning will be accomplished through lectures, specialized software tool demonstrations, and mini-case studies of real world examples.

 

"For a reliability engineer responsibility ends with the completion of an orbit operation, but with this course, I realized that there is another part of the mission that should be evaluated. Reliability should evaluate risks after the end of a mission phase."

Specific Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify the characteristics of the orbital debris environment and its sources.
• Describe various measurements in low-Earth orbit (LEO), medium-Earth orbit (MEO), and geosynchronous orbit (GEO), and explain orbital debris modeling methods, and collision risk probabilities and assessments.
• Describe orbital debris mitigation policies at the agency, national, and international levels.
• Explain the nature of NASA's Human Casualty Reentry Risk Assessments and Criterion.
• Describe the NASA Reentry Risk Evaluation Process, per NASA Standard 8719.14 requirements.
• Explain the benefits of DAS and ORSAT reentry assessment tools.
• Define the objectives for "design for demise" philosophy.
• Identify implementation design for demise strategies on specific NASA missions, including GPM, GLAST, RBSP, and Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS).

Competencies and Technical Areas Addressed

• Orbital Debris Environment Classifications
• Reentry Risk Assessments
• Design for Demise
• NASA Orbital Debris Mitigation Policies and Requirements
• Collision Risk Probabilities and Assessments