DEBIE - first standard in-situ debris monitoring instrument

Objects larger than a few centimetres can be tracked with radar or with optical telescopes. The population of smaller particles can only be investigated by the analysis of retrieved spacecraft and passive detectors or by in-situ monitors in orbit. Patria Finavitec together with UniSpace Kent have developed the DEBIE (DEBris In-orbit Evaluator) instrument to determine the parameters of sub-millimetre sized space debris and micrometeoroids in-situ by their impact with a detecting surface. The main goal has been to develop an economical and low-resource instrument, easy to integrate into any spacecraft, while providing reliable real-time data for space debris modelling.