Improvement in an Estimation Method of the Debris Environment Utilizing In-situ Measurements

Abstract

Space debris smaller than 2 mm that cannot be detected by ground-based observations may lead to a spacecraft's mission end. Therefore, multiple institutes and organizations have conducted in-situ measurement projects including the IDEA (In-situ Debris Environmental Awareness) project, which has been initiated at Kyushu University. The previous research has proposed a statistical method that estimates the environment of sub-millimeter-size debris sequentially utilizing in-situ measurements. This paper aims to improve accuracy of the estimation result by a “feedback estimation” method that utilizes the measurement data multiple times. Furthermore, this paper also calculates “total likelihood” to evaluate the accuracy of estimation results quantitatively so that effectiveness of the feedback estimation can be discussed. The evaluation with the total likelihoods suggests that the feedback estimation method can increase the accuracy of the environmental estimation. In conclusion, this paper contributes the improvement in the environmental estimation on sub-millimeter-size debris utilizing in-situ measurement.