Long-term simulations to assess the effects of drag and solar sails on the space debris environment

This paper is focused on the long-term simulation part of a study, funded by the European Space Agency, aimed at assessing the net effect of using sails for passive deorbiting at the end of life on the future debris population around the Earth. The aim of the "environmental feedback" task of the study was to perform simulations on the overall debris population considering the cases in which solar and drag sails are used for deorbiting. This is done in three steps, first the requirements in terms of sail area for deorbiting in a desired time are found, and then these requirements are compared with the current capabilities of sail technology. As a third step the revised sail area, considering technological constraints, are used for each spacecraft employing a sail in the debris simulation in SDM. The paper discusses the results of the long-term simulations.