Populations for a divine-based space debris model

A new analytical tool to calculate flux and spatial density resulting from space debris was developed with the aim to allow fast and accurate analysis for any target orbit and altitudes ranging from LEO to GEO. The model is based on the approach presented by N. Divine in 1993, which was developed for the meteoroid flux analysis. This approach was adapted to the Earth's debris environment, and is implemented in ESA's meteoroid and space debris reference model MASTER'99 as so called 'Standard application'. An extended version of the model called DIADEM, which is restricted to flux and spatial density analysis at high altitudes, includes a debris particle cloud model. This model may be applied to known cloud generation events, e.g. solid rocket motor (SRM) firings. The accuracy of the analysis results of the Divine-based model is essentially depending on the implementation of the underlying debris population. This applies to both the background population and to particle clouds. This paper is intended to describe the adaptation of the MASTER reference population to the needs of the new model, and to give a survey of its cloud modelling capabilities.