Space debris composition identification through spectrophotometric methods to mitigate orbital contamination

Abstract

Space debris plays a critical role in the aerospace industry, putting a significant risk in the industry, jeopardizing not only the missions beyond Earth's atmosphere but also to the planet's environment. As the space debris that gradually slows down in Earth’s lower orbit, it ultimately ends up falling back to Earth contributing to generate air, ground and water pollution. This work aims to explore the integration of the available spectroscopy methods within a circular economy framework in space to effectively manage and mitigate space debris.

The resulting study on the use of spectrophotometric techniques offers valuable insights when characterizing the surface composition of debris despite the challenges posed by its complexity found in material deterioration, darkening of the surfaces and atmospheric disruptions in top of the distance and velocity when regarding its photometric analysis. Issuing spectra, that when compared to in-literature obtained spectra varies in certain areas. These discrepancies share common variations allowing a preliminary categorization that permits verification of the spectra obtained from debris. Enabling to define recyclable materials from those that are not quite accurately. Which with the creation of a framework and circular economy model to repurpose and remediate most of the space debris, will help to mitigate the current problem created around debris and drive the industry to a close to zero debris creation.