On-orbit placement optimization of proximity defense shield for space station.

Space station is under the increasing threaten caused by large amount of space debris on Earth orbit. Besides traditional active and passive defense measures, it is urgent to study active close-in defense strategy for protecting space station from space debris. In this paper, an active close-in defense mode is proposed for a space station based on a flexible and deployable proximity defense shield, while a hybrid procedure is formulated to optimize the on-orbit placement of the shield. First, an active close-in defense scheme for a space station is proposed. Second, the proximity defense process is modeled including orbit propagation and impact momentum transfer. Third, the orbital spatio-temporal evolution of the space debris and the proximity defense shield during the defense process are transformed into a multi-dimensional space probability distribution using the Poincaré section and the Gaussian mixture model. Then, based on probability optimization, the on-orbit placement of the proximity defense shield is optimized for protecting a space station from tiny space debris. Finally, comparison simulations demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed technique. • An innovative space debris close-in defense mode for space station is presented. • An hybrid procedure is proposed to optimize on-orbit placement of proximity defense shield. • The main outcome is the determination of the optimal position of the shield in orbit for debris defense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]