LATEST REVISIONS TO THE NASA DEBRIS ASSESSMENT SOFTWARE (DAS)

摘要

The Debris Assessment Software (DAS) was developed as a tool to assist NASA program offices in performing orbital debris assessments, as required by the NASA Safety Standard 1740.14. The software is structured in the same manner as the safety standard, making it easier to use, while at the same time helping to ensure a more complete assessment and compliance with the guidelines. It is organized into nine areas: Assessment of Guidelines, Analysis of Debris Released During Normal Operations, Analysis of Accidental Explosions/Intentional Breakups, Analysis of Debris Generated by On-Orbit Collisions, Analysis of Postmission Disposal of Space Structures, Analysis of Debris Reentry Risk after Postmission Disposal, Science/Engineering Utilities, Data and Screen Management Utilities, and User Help. DAS was designed to provide a quick, conservative approach to making the necessary calculations for determining compliance with the NASA safety guidelines. In particular, DAS has been widely used to perform first cut reentry analyses for mis sions that are planning atmospheric reentry as the end of mission disposal option. DAS is a valuable tool that also creates results tables and plots, which can be included in the debris assessment report required for each mission. More recent versions of DAS have also provided several improvements, making the software easier to use and providing more functionality to the user.