Abstract: This Study was produced by the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). It was requested by the Commander Air Force Space Command and approved by the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force. It covers three topics, each of sufficient depth to be a study of its own: Space Surveillance, Asteroid and Comet Impact Warning for Earth, and Space Debris. NASA personnel predicted in 1978 that collisional cascading would be an important source of new orbital debris, possibly before the year 2000, and, as a result, would make low Earth orbits at Space Shuttle altitudes unusable. In 1991, NASA published an article that said these predictions were reinforced by events in 1986 and 1990. Out of concern that the United Nations might take actions to regulate further the existing Air Force launch debris mitigation procedures, the SAB was asked to recalculate the debris phenomenon. The SAB Committee has shown that cascading is not an issue in the coming hundred years and recommends that the Air Force continue its established launch and on orbit debris mitigation procedures
| Limitations: |
 APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE |
| Description: |
Technical rept. Mar 1995-Nov 1996 |
| Pages: |
33 |
| Report Date: |
JUN 1997 |
| Report Number: |
A316214 |
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