Dynamics of spherical space debris of different sizes falling to Earth

• Published in: Astronomische Nachrichten Vol. 341; no. 3; pp. 245 - 257
• Main Authors: Slíz‐Balogh, Judit, Horváth, Dániel, Szabó, Róbert, Horváth, Gábor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA 01.03.2020; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Atmosphere; atmospheric effects; Atmospheric models; celestial mechanics; Earth orbits; Earth surface; Falling; gravitation; Impact damage; Interplanetary dust; methods: Numerical; Orbits; Physical properties; Satellite tracking; Space debris; Space debris mitigation
• ISSN: 0004-6337; 1521-3994
• DOI: 10.1002/asna.202023688

Space debris larger than 1 cm can damage space instruments and impact Earth. The low‐Earth orbits (at heights smaller than 2,000 km) and orbits near the geostationary‐Earth orbit (at 35,786 km height) are especially endangered because most satellites orbit at these latitudes. With current technology, space debris smaller than 10 cm cannot be tracked. Smaller space debris fragments burn up and evaporate in the atmosphere, but larger ones fall to Earth's surface. For practical reasons, it would be important to know the mass, composition, shape, velocity, direction of motion, and impact time of space debris re‐entering the atmosphere and falling to Earth. Since it is very difficult to measure these physical parameters, almost nothing is known about them. To partly fill this gap, we performed computer modeling with which we studied the dynamics of spherical re‐entry particles falling to Earth due to air drag. We determined the time, velocity, and angle of impact as functions of the launch height, direction, speed, and size of spherical re‐entry particles. Our results can also be used for semispherical meteoroid particles of the interplanetary dust entering the Earth's atmosphere.