Simulation Environment for the Rendezvous Path and Abort Trajectory of ADReS-A

Abstract

The threat of space debris to operational satellites is a growing concern for satellite op- erators. Large objects with high collision probability, e.g. rocket bodies and non-functional satellites on highly frequented orbits, form hereby the largest source for the debris’ increase in number. Various ideas on how to remove those objects have been proposed, always point- ing out, that the handling of an uncooperative target comes with many difficulties. Being in close vicinity, the spacecraft relies on its on-board sensors to calculate relative position and velocity. A flawless connection to ground control cannot be ensured and is, moreover, time consuming, which creates the need for high-level autonomy and on-board processing of the spacecraft. The idea of implementing autonomy in spacecraft in general has been followed for some time, however, requirements for a specific implementation need to be de- rived from a designated mission architecture. Therefore, this paper introduces the concept of ADReS-A, short for Autonomous Debris Removal Satellite #A, its mission architecture and a first approach of how to visualize the rendezvous path of the satellite and the abort in case of a failure. The simulation shall serve as a testbed for the coming autonomy and is based on the sensor data of ADReS-A, derived from the spacecraft preliminary design, also presented briefly within this work.