A Proposed Ionospheric Scintillation-Based Method to Detect Sub-Centimeter Space Debris
Ian DesJardin, University of Maryland, College Park
Detection of space debris below the size limits of optical and radar-based methods (<1cm) is an open question. A new method of detecting orbital debris is being developed that uses debris-ionosphere interactions as a proxy for detecting the debris directly. Naturally stable plasma wave emissions, known as solitons, are emitted from debris plasma sheaths moving faster than the ion acoustic sound speed.1 It is also known that wake structures may form behind objects in the ionosphere. We propose a new detection method for plasma solitons based on scintillation measurements of GPS carrier frequency or another known radio transmission. Plasma waves locally modify the electron density which in turn distorts radio waves in a highly frequency dependent manner that is described by the Appleton-Hartree equation. For frequencies above the ionospheric plasma frequency, this manifests as phase scintillation at the receiver where the amount of scintillation depends on the integral of electron density, known as the total electron content (TEC), in the beam. We estimate the magnitude of this modification to the TEC by a characteristic plasma soliton from simulation of the plasma with the Korteweg–De Vries equation using the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model for the background plasma. This is used to quantify the signal to noise ratio (SNR) necessary to detect the debris-ionospheric interaction.
References:
1Truitt, A. S., & Hartzell, C. M. (2020). Simulating Plasma Solitons from Orbital Debris Using the Forced Korteweg–de Vries Equation. Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 57(5), 876–897.
Abstract Author(s): Ian M. DesJardin, Christine M. Hartzell