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It’s getting crowded there. The increase in military, commercial and scientific launches, combined with the decreasing costs of sharing cubesat launches, means there will be much more space
It’s getting crowded there. The increase in military, commercial and scientific launches, combined with the decreasing costs of sharing cubesat launches, means there will be much more space debris in the coming years. And we’re not just talking about low Earth orbit; The lunar and cis-lunar (near the lunar field) are also about to be occupied.
While we (mostly) watch and understand what happens in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), we often fail to watch what happens in Geostationary/Geosynchronous GEO and beyond. This is even less true around the Moon, which will soon become a busy place in the coming decades. Now, a recent study by Purdue University aims to model and track space debris around the moon, with an eye toward mitigation.
The research, led by Carolyn Fruet, will provide the opportunity to track the best areas and regions in the sky near the Moon for such a mission. The study also points to the use of “four-body geometry” to model the evolution of trajectories over time. Tracking and avoiding debris is already a common problem for the International Space Station in low Earth orbit. This is a question that future missions to the moon must also acknowledge.
“There aren’t a lot of missions to this (supermoon) space right now,” Carolyn Frew (Purdue University) told Universe Today. “From this perspective, we ‘know what’s going on’, but since we do not have a well-established observation in this region yet, we lack a lot of information, especially about the deep space objects and some of them that enter this region.” “beings” of the wreckage.
Recent events reveal how crowded the Moon is. An example of this was the recent crash of a lunar rocket booster on the far side of the moon in early 2022. The launch vehicle was initially thought to belong to SpaceX, but was later identified as the upper stage of a Chinese Long March rocket.
Speaking of close encounters, NASA’s venerable Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was recently spotted passing by the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) with its ShadowCam instrument from just 18 kilometers away.
The space gap between the Earth and the Moon is huge. The region, about a quarter of a million miles in diameter, is also poorly monitored by ground-based radars and telescopes tasked with tracking space debris. Space entities in orbit around the Earth (or better yet, the Moon) will do a better job of this, though not currently.
“The Earth-dominated environment is the Earth-dominated environment; we’re talking about a two-body geometry for a satellite,” Fruet says. “Far above the geosynchronous region, the Moon’s gravity is more than a small perturbation in the two-body orbit, and we are talking about three-body geometry. For example, four-body geometry comes into play when dealing with the gravitational effects of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Since the Sun is a large gravitational body, this is of course a perturbation in two-body and three-body orbits. “The geometry of the four objects is particularly important when we want to evaluate whether nearby objects remain on average in the prelunar region (Earth-Moon) or leave this region (but may return again much later).”
Frueh uses light curves to predict the inevitable decay events of satellites in Earth orbit. This can also be applied to the moon.
“In my own work, I have used four-body geometry to evaluate electro-optical (space telescope) observation options for the cis-lunar region,” says Fruet. “Here, this is good enough relative to the three-body approach from astrodynamics, but I used four-body geometry to get the sunlight conditions within the approximation I needed for EO (electro-optical) sensors.”
Space debris returning from heliocentric orbit often enters orbit around the Moon or Earth as temporary satellites. One such case was J002E3, which turned out to be the launch vehicle from Apollo 12. Another was asteroid 2010 QW1, later identified as the Long March-3C upper stage of China’s Chang’e-2 mission.
“Yes, heliocentric objects can return to the lunar region,” says Fruet. “Therefore, when evaluating ‘leaving the sublunar region’ disposal options, a (much) later return should be taken into account.”
Lunar missions in the next decade will include Artemis-crewed missions. This will be followed by the Artemis II Moon flight next year and the Artemis III Moon landing in 2025. NASA’s Viper rover will go to the moon in 2024. Astrobotics and Intuitive Machines will land on the moon later this year. Additionally, a crewed Lunar Gateway orbital outpost is planned for late 2025.
Improving tracking and detection, preferably through an in-situ lunar tracking network, is of great importance. “Creating a comprehensive observation of the near-lunar region is currently an active area of research and development,” Fruet says.
The Artemis Accords, signed by 29 countries in 2020, directly address the need to combat the growing problem of space debris.
Many international organizations are also betting on the growth of the “lunar economy”. This situation will increase the monthly traffic load in the coming years. Many companies expect to use the Moon to obtain both economic and scientific resources. For this purpose, the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to create Moonlight, an independent communication network around the Moon. This network of three to four satellites (plus spare satellites in orbit) should be launched by 2025.
As humans return to the moon on a large scale over the next decade, we’ll have a chance to get it right and keep lunar debris under control. Source
Source: Port Altele
As an experienced journalist and author, Mary has been reporting on the latest news and trends for over 5 years. With a passion for uncovering the stories behind the headlines, Mary has earned a reputation as a trusted voice in the world of journalism. Her writing style is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking, as she takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues of our time.
