A risk assessment tool for highly energetic break-up events during the atmospheric re-entry

Abstract

Most unmanned space missions end up with a destructive atmospheric re-entry. From ten to forty percent of a re-entering satellite’s mass may survive re-entry and hit the Earth’s surface. This has the potential to be a hazard to people, fauna, flora and produce economic damage. The severe consequences of inaccurate predictions of the area where the debris can re-enter and land result in the need to consider all the possible causes of fragmentation. This thesis proposes and discusses the application of two Bayesian statistical models, designed to be the principles that underlie a new risk assessment tool for the modelling of the fragmentation of a spacecraft, caused by highly energetic break-up events during the atmospheric re-entry. This new tool is required to evaluate with a certain degree of uncertainty if such events can occur and, in an affirmative case, to provide the characteristics of the fragments. Risk assessment for re-entering spacecraft is made difficult because there is very little historical information. As a consequence, both the models incorporate a strategy to make the most by the judgement of atmospheric re-entry experts. This dissertation summarises the work executed within the European Space Agency Network Partnering Initiative (reference No. 4000106747/13/NL/GLC/al).