Ihi Corporation

Kyushu University

Toshiya Hanada

Aritsune Kawabe

Yukihito Kitazawa

Disclosed is a method for clearing space debris in geocentric orbit, wherein, in geocentric orbit, a spatial region having a greater resistive force than atmosphere in the geocentric orbit is provided, space debris passing through the spatial region is decelerated by the resistive force, and the decelerated space debris is dropped from the geocentric orbit.

Method for clearing space debris

A method of detecting space debris includes: generating a virtual space debris in accordance with the law of conservation of mass by applying a debris breakup model to an object of breakup origin; calculating an orbit of each virtual space debris based on a debris orbit propagation model; and generating appearance frequency distribution of a motion vector of each virtual space debris on the celestial sphere based on the orbit calculation. The above operations are executed multiple times. The method further includes setting a search range vector based on a motion vector having a high level of the appearance frequency distribution of the motion vector, and applying a stacking method to regions in images captured at time intervals during the fixed point observation, the regions being shifted along the search range vector sequentially in the order of capture, thereby detecting space debris appearing on the images.

Growing community of inventors

Fukuoka, Japan

Toshiya Hanada