LISK-BROOM: Clearing near-Earth space debris in 4 years using a 20-kW, 530-nm repetitively pulsed laser

摘要

When space debris forced a change of plan for a recent US Space Shuttle mission, it finally reached the point of broad awareness. Almost a million pieces of debris have been generated by 35 years of spaceflight, and now threaten some long-term space missions. This problem can best be solved by causing space debris items to re-enter and burn up in the atmosphere on a computed trajectory. Illumination of the objects by a repetitively-pulsed laser will easily produce a laser-ablation jet providing the impulse to de-orbit the object. For reasons we will discuss, we propose the use of a ground-based laser system, atmospheric-turbulence compensating beam director, computer and high resolution detection system to solve this problem. A laser of just 2OkW average power and state-of-the-art detection capabilities could clear near-Earth space below 1100km altitude of all space debris larger than 1 cm but less massive than 100kg in about 4 years. The LISK-BROOM laser would be located near the Equator above 5km elevation (e.g., the Uhuru site on Kilimanjarol, minimizing turbulence correction and absorption of the 530-nm wavelength laser beam. LISK-BROOM is a special case of Laser Impulse Space Propulsion (LISP), by which objects are propelled in space by the ablation jet due to a distant laser. We will also discuss active beam phase error correction during passage through the atmosphere and the object detection system which are necessary.