OrbitalHub

Credits: ESA

The Fifth European Conference on Space Debris is hosted by ESA. The conference takes place at ESA’s Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, for four days beginning March 30.

The space debris in Earth orbit has been attracting attention due to the direct threat that it poses to current and future space missions. Long-term protection of the low-Earth and geosynchronous orbital zones is essential for the development of commercial activities in space.

“Our ability to safely use outer space in the long term is not guaranteed,” said Gerard Brachet, a past Chairman of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS), speaking during today’s opening speech. He added that: “Increased crowding in low Earth orbits as well as the geostationary orbit creates new challenges.”

The first artificial satellite was launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union. Since then, almost 5000 launches have placed around 6000 satellites into orbit. Today, the 800 operational satellites count for only six percent of the catalogued orbit population. Decommissioned satellites, spent upper stages, mission-related objects, and fragments make up the rest. More than half of the debris originates from around 200 fragmentations that occurred in orbit. Except for few accidental collisions, these fragmentations were explosions of spacecraft and upper stages.

Mitigation measures have to be implemented. Among these, reducing the number of explosions, minimizing the number of objects released during spacecraft operations (also known as mission-related objects or MRO), re-orbiting satellites, and returning spacecraft and rocket stages to Earth after completion of their mission.

The main sponsor of the conference is ESA and co-sponsors are the Italian space agency (ASI), the British National Space Centre (BNSC), the French space agency (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

For more details about the conference, you can visit the ESA website.

Credits: CNES

In 2005, ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team held its first Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC). The purpose of the competition is to stimulate research of techniques for finding the optimal trajectory for different space missions.

What is interesting about this competition is how it has been taken up by the community after its first edition. The winners of the competition become the hosts for the next edition.

The first edition of the competition was won by the Outer Planets Mission Analysis Group of JPL. The second edition was won by the Department of Energetic in the Polytechnic of Turin, and the third edition was won by CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales).

CNES has announced the 4^th Edition of the GTOC. We quote this year’s announcers of the competition, Regis Bertrand, Richard Epenoy, and Benoit Meyssignac:

“Mission designers generally solve trajectory optimisation problems by means of local optimisation methods together with their own experience of the problem. Even if this way is known to provide good results, it never guarantees to yield the global optimum. On the other hand, global optimisation techniques can offer significant assistance in finding an acceptable solution to a given problem, even though convergence to the global optimum is still not guaranteed. By focusing on a problem with a very large number of locally optimal solutions, the Global Trajectory Optimisation Competition promotes the development of methods that most thoroughly and most quickly search through a large and unconventional design space for optima.”

The deadline for registration is February 27, 2009. On March 2, 2009, the competition problem will be disclosed, and March 30, 2009, is the deadline for return of solutions. In September 2009, during a one-day workshop held in Toulouse, France, the teams selected will present their methods and solutions.

Credits: NASA

The University of Toronto Astronomy and Space Exploration Society (ASX for short) has started a very nice tradition: the space movie night.

I received an invitation for Friday, November 28, 2008, and I could not refuse it. The last time I attended an ASX event I was not disappointed, and I was sure this time would not be any different.

The movies presented were The Rocketeers and The Last Empty Sky. The Rocketeers presented the history of the X series of aircraft (the rocket planes that broke the sound barrier and put the first American pilots into space), and the The Last Empty Sky presented the development of rocket between 1920 and 1957.

It was interesting to follow the story of Werner Von Braun and how he managed to build the Saturn family of rockets using the technology available at the end of the World War Two.

I hope that ASX will continue the movie night tradition and present more movies about space exploration. For sure, I will be the first to respond to their invitation. Thank you, ASX!

If you know about similar events in your hometown, please share the information with OrbitalHub readers in the comments section.