Space Debris End to End Service - presentation of the DLR work plan

Resulting from the present effort on international regulations and the compilation of guidelines to handle the space debris problem in the future, the need consists to advise spacecraft manufacturer, suppliers and operators ideally in the form of a commercially useful End to End Service. The competence of German institutions incl. research institutes and companies in the field of the space debris research and risk analyses is widely recognized and very well suitable to deal with all the corresponding aspects in Germany but also Europe-wide. It is the intention of DLR to concentrate and link all expertises and competences, available in Germany, in one coherent project. The space industry should contribute to risk analyses, reviews of guidelines and to proposals for space debris minimising design and operations of spacecraft. Preliminary proposals by several institutes and companies have been prepared and have been compiled to a consolidated work plan for a project named 'Space Debris End to End Service'. 'End to End' means the consideration of space debris mitigation aspects from begin of the design over the operational phase of a spacecraft up to the end of the mission and the following phase of the initiation of space debris avoidance measures (e.g. passivation, de- or re-orbiting). The effectiveness of such an End to End Service shall be demonstrated on a satellite project. The work packages of the project shall cover in principle the following activities: Conception of an End to End Service - Identification of national needs, the state of knowledge and information - Spacecraft requirements and mitigation measures - Re-entry analyses - Application on a pilot project, incl. system review, meteoroid and space debris modelling, hazard analyses, recommendations of measures and a cost to benefit analysis. This paper reports about the work plan and the status of the project.