The space environment particle density in Low Earth Orbit based on two decades of in-situ observation

TL;DR

This paper presents over 20 years of in-situ measurements of particle density in Low Earth Orbit using the DEBIE-1 detector, providing valuable long-term data for space environment modeling and calibration.

Contribution

It offers the longest continuous dataset of in-situ particle measurements in Low Earth Orbit, independent of existing space environment models.

Findings

First long-term in-situ dataset for Low Earth Orbit particles

Enables detection of environment-changing events

Supports calibration of space environment evolution models

Abstract

Currently the only method to establish the prevalence of particles, space debris or meteoroids, sized between 1 micrometre and a few centimetres, in Earth orbit is by instruments or witness plates dedicated to in-situ detection. Derived usable datasets are remarkably scarce and generally only cover a short period of time and a single orbital region. Nonetheless, space environment models use those limited datasets as anchor points to extrapolate results to the entirety of Earth orbit, from the beginning of the space age to decades into the future. Here we present a readout of over 20 years of DEBris In orbit Evaluator 1 (DEBIE-1), an in-situ detector that was launched in October 2001, providing the longest continuous set of measurements available to date. The dataset has not been used in the generation of space environment models and hence provides a first independent source for the detection of environment changing events and for the calibration of long term evolution models.