Application of density-based propagation to fragment clouds using the Starling suite

The Starling suite estimates the non-linear evolution of densities in orbit. These densities can be probability density functions describing uncertainties about states or distributions of particle clouds modeled as continua. In this work, the Starling suite is applied to satellite fragmentations in a circular as well as highly eccentric orbit around Earth. The former case is challenging because the fragment distribution is bounded. Such boundedness is tackled using feature spaces defined relative to propagated reference hypersurfaces. The latter case is challenging as assumptions of the randomization in the node and argument of perigee do not hold over the mid-term. The suite also allows to estimate the impact rate from a fragment cloud on missions in any orbital region. Estimating the consequences of fragmentations is important as it can be used to rate planned space missions in terms of risks towards the future space environment.