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TERRAFORMING MARS in a Climate of Existential Risk Keith Mansfield Journal of the British Interplanetary Society VOLUME 71 NO.9 SEPTEMBER 2018 General Issue PRESERVING GEOSTATIONARY ORBIT: the next steps Mark Hempsell, Roger Longstaff & Sebastiane Alexandra FUTURE RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING MISSIONS enabled by low-cost but safety compliant Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) architectures Steve Eckersley et al TERRAFORMING MARS in a climate of existential risk Keith Mansfield www.bis-space.com ISSN 0007-084X PUBLICATION DATE: 10 JANUARY 2019 Submitting papers International Advisory Board to JBIS JBIS welcomes the submission of technical Rachel Armstrong, Newcastle University, UK papers for publication dealing with technical Peter Bainum, Howard University, USA reviews, research, technology and engineering in astronautics and related fields. Stephen Baxter, Science & Science Fiction Writer, UK James Benford, Microwave Sciences, California, USA Text should be: James Biggs, The University of Strathclyde, UK ■ As concise as the content allows – typically 5,000 to 6,000 words. Shorter papers (Technical Notes) Anu Bowman, Foundation for Enterprise Development, California, USA will also be considered; longer papers will only Gerald Cleaver, Baylor University, USA be considered in exceptional circumstances – for Charles Cockell, University of Edinburgh, UK example, in the case of a major subject review. Ian A. Crawford, Birkbeck College London, UK ■ Source references should be inserted in the text in square brackets – [1] – and then listed at the Adam Crowl, Icarus Interstellar, Australia end of the paper. Eric W. Davis, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, USA ■ Illustration references should be cited in Kathryn Denning, York University, Toronto, Canada numerical order in the text; those not cited in the Martyn Fogg, Probability Research Group, UK text risk omission. Raghavan Gopalaswami, Aerospace Researcher, India ■ Captions must be labelled with their Fig. number and should be as short as possible. Lamartine Guimarães, Institute for Advanced Studies, Brazil Mark Hempsell, Hempsell Astronautics Ltd, UK Illustrations should be: Takuto Ishimatsu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA ■ Colour or mono, but should be as close to print Les Johnson, Marshall Space Flight Center, USA resolution (300 dpi) as possible. Poor-quality illustrations may compromise the acceptance of Terry Kammash, University of Michigan, USA paper for publication. Images embedded in Word Kelvin F. Long, Initiative for Interstellar Studies documents may be acceptable, but JBIS reserves Inoue Makoto, Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics Academia Sinica, Taiwan the right to request separate higher-resolution Gregory L. Matloff, City University New York, USA image files from the author prior to publication. Koichi Mori, Nagoya University, Japan ■ Responsibility for copyright clearance of images rests entirely with the author. Richard Obousy, Richard Obousy Consulting LLC, USA Robert Parkinson, BIS, Aylesbury, UK Submission of papers George Schmidt, NASA John H Glenn Research Center, Ohio, USA ■ Papers for consideration should be sent by Paul Schuch, The SETI League Inc, USA email to [email protected] as both a Word document and as a Word PDF file (in order to Tabitha Smith, Bifrost, USA check for font anomalies), together with any Andreas Tziolas, Variance Dynamical Corporation, USA separate image files. Chris Welch, The International Space University, Strasbourg, France ■ If a paper is accepted for publication, the Friedwardt Winterberg, University of Nevada, Reno, USA author will be asked to sign a License to Publish form. This can be downloaded at www.bis- space.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ WebsiteLicense.pdf. ■ Authors will receive a complimentary copy of the issue in which their paper appears. Editor Roger Longstaff Deputy Editor Duncan Law-Green Associate Editors Stephen Ashworth, We respectfully ask authors to adhere to these Keith Cooper, Stephen Gamble, Paul Gilster, Rob Swinney, Production MP3 Media guidelines. Failure to do so will result in the Promotion Gill Norman JBIS Office British Interplanetary Society, Arthur C. Clarke House, delay of acceptable papers for publication. 27-29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ, United Kingdom tel +44 (0)20 7735 3160 email [email protected] www.bis-space.com Our full Guidelines for Authors can be downloaded DISTRIBUTION from www.bis-space.com JBIS is distributed worldwide by mail and may be received by annual subscription or purchase of single copies. It is available through membership of the British Interplanetary Society at much reduced rates. Subscription details for members, non-members and libraries are available from the above address. JBIS is a publication that promotes the mission of the British Interplanetary Society. Opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or the Council of the British Interplanetary Society. Security clearance, where necessary, is the responsibility of the author. Published by the British Interplanetary Society. Registered Company No: 402498. Registered Charity No: 250556. Printed by Latimer Trend & Company Ltd, Estover Road, Plymouth, PL6 7PY, England. © 2019 British Interplanetary Society. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission from the Publishers. CONTENTS VOLUME 71 NO.9 SEPTEMBER 2018 314 PRESERVING GEOSTATIONARY ORBIT: the next steps Mark Hempsell, Roger Longstaff and Sebastiane Alexandra 323 FUTURE RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING MISSIONS enabled by low-cost but safety compliant Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) architectures Steve Eckersley et al 348 TERRAFORMING MARS in a climate of existential risk Keith Mansfield OUR MISSION STATEMENT The British Interplanetary Society promotes the exploration and use of space for the benefit of humanity, connecting people to create, educate and inspire, and advance knowledge in all aspects of astronautics. JBIS Vol 71 No.9 September 2018 313 JBIS VOLUME 71 2018 PAGES 314–322 PRESERVING GEOSTATIONARY ORBIT: the Next Steps MARK HEMPSELL1, ROGER LONGSTAFF2 and SEBASTIANE ALEXANDRA3 1Hempsell Astronautics Ltd., 10 Silver Birch Avenue, Stotfold, Herts, SG5 4AR, UK; 2Guest Associates (Europe) Ltd., 2 Alyson Villas, Vincent Close, Ilford, IG6 7FE, UK; 3Barrister at Law, c/o Guest Associates (Europe) Ltd. email [email protected] A 2016 study produced an initial feasibility assessment of a system, called “Necropolis”, to collect uncontrolled satellites in geosynchronous orbit and re-locate them at a long-term storage facility, kept under permanent control. The study identified three areas that required attention in subsequent work. The first area was improving understanding the collision risk in geostationary orbit and the status of the major debris that creates the risk. New work is required that properly models the concentrating effect of the libration points, and also evaluates the change in risk due recent events, in particular the AMC-9 incident. The second area is the revision of the Necropolis technical concept to incorporate the new understanding of the urgency to improve debris control measures. The third area is the requirements for evaluation of the current space law relating to use of geostationary orbit that can enable proper regulation of the environment. This needs to address the requirement to report incidents and their causes, and to enable more precise determination of liability. Keywords: Geostationary orbit, Debris control, Necropolis 1 INTRODUCTION orbit. The study identified several areas where urgent work was required to increase the understanding of the real risks, The problem of anthropogenic debris and the threat it poses to develop the systems to control geostationary debris and to to operational space systems has been a growing concern. In establish the necessary regulatory environment. lower Earth orbits we already have a Kessler syndrome situ- ation – that is “the number of space-debris objects in some 2 THE NECROPOLIS STUDY orbital regions grows even if mitigation measures are applied” [1]. With the concern over the urgent matter of low Earth or- The premise of the Necropolis study [2] was that the practice bit, much less attention has been paid to the geostationary or- of relocating geostationary satellites to an unregulated “grave- bit, but the situation is complex and there is a higher risk of yard orbit” (around 300 km above geostationary altitude) a Kessler syndrome there as well unless active measures are would in the long term be unsustainable, as the debris density, taken to prevent it. and therefore the collision risk, increases and debris from a graveyard collision could reach geostationary orbit, putting The problem of the growing debris environment around ge- operational satellites there at risk. It was assumed this would ostationary orbit was the subject of a four months ‘quick look’ be a long term problem – many decades away – so the specific study conducted in 2016 which was led by Guest Associates subject of the study was a technology demonstration mission (Europe) Ltd., supported by Hempsell Astronautics Ltd., with that would verify the means to provide a strategy that would financial support from a grant awarded by the UK Space Agen- permanently control the debris in the geostationary environ- cy’s National Space Technology Programme [2, 3]. Although ment. The Necropolis demonstration flight
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