A Feasibility Study of CubeSat Architectures for Space Debris Removal from Low Earth Orbit

The rapid increase of space debris in low earth orbit has had tangible impacts on government and commercial missions and caused growing concern among the space community. Removal of collision-prone objects using deorbiter satellites represents a viable strategy for stabilizing the debris population, but the expense and lack of immediate economic benefit reduce the likelihood of decisive action. In an effort to describe a new family of low-cost deorbiter spacecraft, this thesis explores the utility of CubeSats for debris removal.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Clark, Christopher P.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Masterson, Rebecca A.
• Hastings, Daniel E.
• Ricard, Michael J.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138733

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/138733