Inversion of Space Debris Material by Synthetic Light Curves

Abstract

Ground-based optical observation of GEO space debris plays an essential role in tracking, identifying, cataloging, and classifying space debris. The factors that affect the brightness of space debris include size, surface material, illumination geometry, attitude, shape, position, and so on. In order to better understand the influence of the above factors on the brightness of space debris, the synthetic light curves are analyzed. The Ashikhmin–Shirley model is chosen to simulate the light curves of space debris. The effects of orbit, attitude, model parameters, and the location of the observation station on the synthetic light curves are analyzed by the control variable method. Based on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method (MCMC), the optimal model parameters that characterize the surface material of space debris can be obtained by comparing the synthetic light curves with the observed light curves under certain shape, orbit, and attitude characteristics. The results are roughly in good agreement with those measured in the laboratory.