Space debris proximity analysis in powered and orbital phases during satellite launch Original Research Article

This paper describes the methodology of the space debris proximity analysis in powered and orbital phase at the time of a satellite launch. The details of the SPADEPRO analysis package, developed for this purpose, are presented. It consists of modules which provide the functions related to ephemeris generation and reconstruction of primary object (launch vehicle or its payload upon insertion), determination of close approaches with resident space objects, computation of the state vector variance of the primary and the secondary objects to represent the knowledge uncertainty, and computation of the collision risk given the variance. This has been successfully applied during the recent launches of the Indian Space Research Organization.