Look Out for the Little Ones: On the Long-Term Impact of Debris Size Distribution on Breakup

This paper investigates the long-term effects of satellite breakup on the evolutionary growth of debris in the low Earth orbit environment. It uses models and simulations to explore how collisional cascade can happen (or not) due to debris objects and shows how active satellites can maneuver to avoid collisions. The study was originally presented at the 17th Hypervelocity Impact Symposium and has been published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). ASME holds the copyright for this paper.