Impact: Integrated modeling of perturbations in atmospheres for conjunction tracking

Abstract : The United States relies heavily on its space infrastructure for a vast number of applications, including communication, navigation, banking, national security, and research. However, NASA predicts that between now and 2030 orbital collisions will become increasingly frequent and could reach a runaway environment. This devastating scenario, also known as the Kessler Syndrome, has the potential to eventually destroy our assets in near-Earth space and result in a debris cloud that could make space itself inaccessible. Preventing the Kessler Syndrome requires, in addition to an object removal technique, a groundbreaking new orbital dynamics framework that combines a comprehensive physics-based model of atmospheric drag with an accurate uncertainty quantification of orbital predictions. The IMPACT project (Integrated Modeling of Perturbations in Atmospheres for Conjunction Tracking), funded with over $5 Million by the Los Alamos Laboratory Directed Research and Development office has the goal to develop such an integrated system of atmospheric drag modeling, orbit propagation, and conjunction analysis with detailed uncertainty quantification to address the space debris and collision avoidance problem. We discuss the components and capabilities of the IMPACT framework and show a short demonstration of modeling interface and resulting 3D visualizations.