Project CartWheel Assessment of Collision and Contamination Risks

Kurzfassung

In the frame of CartWheel orbit evaluation investigations, the collision risk in case of loss of one of the Cartwheel satellites with the main satellite (e.g. Envisat) will be investigated for the two cases: Envisat behind Cartwheel and Envisat befor Cartwheel. In case of Envisat behind Cartwhell, the collision can be reduced be separatin of the nodes of the two orbits. For the later case the contamination risk of Envisat in case of orbit maneuvers of the Cartwheel satellites will be estimated for different along track separations of the satellites.