Nonlinear wave excitations by orbiting charged space debris objects

Abstract The nonlinear wave excitations arising from the orbital motion of a charged space debris object in the plasma environment of the Low Earth Orbital (LEO) region are investigated. In the weakly nonlinear and dispersive limit it is shown that the moving debris induced excitations can be described by a forced Korteweg de Vries (fKdV) type model equation. This equation predicts a striking phenomenon of excitation of advancing solitary waves (precursor solitons) in the upstream region of the moving object apart from weak dispersive excitations (wake fields) in the down stream region. The detection of such precursor solitons by in situ or remote means could provide a valuable diagnostic tool for detection of charged debris objects in the less than 10 cm size range which are normally difficult to observe by optical means. The conditions for the excitation of such solitons through a numerical solution of the fKdV equation are delineated and the relevance and impact of these waves for the dynamical study of orbital space debris are discussed.