Determining origins of satellite breakup events in LEO region

Abstract

Currently, a surge in the number of spacecraft and fragments is observed, leading to more frequent breakup events in low Earth orbits (LEOs). The causes of these events are being identified, and specific triggers, such as collisions or explosions, are being examined for their importance to space traffic management. Backward propagation methods were employed to trace the origins of these types of breakup events. Simulations were conducted using the NASA standard breakup model, and satellite Hitomi’s breakup was analyzed. Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergences, Euclidean 2-norms, and Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergences were computed to deduce potential types of breakups and the associated fragmentation masses. In the simulated case, a discrepancy of 22.12 s between the estimated and actual time was noted. Additionally, the breakup of the Hitomi satellite was estimated to have occurred around UTC 1:49:26.4 on March 26, 2016. This contrasts with the epoch provided by the Joint Space Operation Center, which was estimated to be at 1:42 UTC ± 11 min. From the findings, it was suggested that the techniques introduced in the study can be effectively used to trace the origins of short-term breakup events and to deduce the types of collisions and fragmentation masses under certain conditions.