Analysis of the Close Approaches between the Chinese Space Station and Starlink Satellite
To ensure the safety of astronauts in orbit,the China Space Station implemented active emergency collision avoidance maneuvers for Starlink-1095 and Starlink-2305 on July 1 and October 21,2021,respectively.The paper analyzes these close approach events by calculating the TLE position prediction errors of the space station and Starlink satellites.The relevant parameters of the two close approaches were determined using the BOX method and the collision probability method.The variation of collision probability with error variance under different position error ellipsoid distributions was then analyzed.The results indicate that on July 1 at 10:14:08.85 UTC,Starlink-1095 entered the China Space Station's warning area,with a duration of 2.41 seconds and a minimum relative distance of about 5.06 km at the closest approach.On October 21,Starlink-2305 entered the warning area twice at a small angle,with a time interval of about one orbital period of the space station.The relative velocity was small,resulting in a prolonged warning duration of up to 16 seconds.The collision probability of the three warnings all had a maximum value.When the actual position error was difficult to evaluate,the maximum collision probability could reach the minimum collision avoidance threshold of 1e-5,indicating the necessity for the China Space Station to perform emergency collision avoidance.
China space stationstarlinkclose approachemergency collision avoidancecollision probability
万方数据
维普
