Debris removal from low earth orbit (DR LEO)

Abstract

Students of the MSc course in Astronautics and Space Engineering 2009/10 at Cranfield University studied a low Earth orbit (LEO) debris removal mission for their group project. The mission's name was DR LEO (Debris Removal from LEO) and its aim was to develop a credible mission baseline using conventional technology to perform active debris removal from LEO. This report summarises the students' work and their findings. The report consists of an overview and discussion of the technical work of the project and a compilation of the executive summaries which describe the specific contributions of each student. The baseline mission design developed is broadly credible and provides a useful benchmark against which other missions can be compared to evaluate the potential of alternative technologies. The mission costing from this first design iteration sets a benchmark cost per unit mass de-orbited of approximately € 20-30k kg - 1 using conventional chemical propulsion.