阅读说明：本技术 一种小尺寸空间碎片清除方法 (Small-size space debris removing method ) 是由 方英武 张广鹏 梁晓博 于 2020-06-30 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明公开了一种小尺寸空间碎片清除方法,采用多光束组合超短脉冲激光对目标碎片进行辐照,多光束组合超短脉冲激光包括小脉冲激光、中等脉宽脉冲激光及大脉冲激光；其中,采用小脉冲激光对目标碎片进行辐照,消除目标碎片的自旋效应；采用中等脉宽脉冲激光对目标碎片进行辐照,清除等离子体屏蔽效应；采用大脉冲激光降低目标碎片的轨道高度或对目标碎片进行烧蚀清除；采用小脉冲激光辅助消除目标碎片的自选效应,降低了超短脉冲激光的功率损耗；采用大脉冲激光实现对目标碎片的降轨；通过采用中等脉宽脉冲激光,加强了超短脉冲激光与目标碎片的耦合效应,降低了等离子体对超短脉冲激光的吸收,确保了超短脉冲能够准确有效达到目标碎片的表面。(The invention discloses a method for removing small-size space fragments, which adopts multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser to irradiate target fragments, wherein the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser comprises small pulse laser, medium pulse width pulse laser and large pulse laser; irradiating the target fragments by adopting small pulse laser to eliminate the spin effect of the target fragments; irradiating the target fragments by adopting pulse laser with medium pulse width to remove the plasma shielding effect; reducing the track height of the target fragments or ablating and removing the target fragments by adopting large-pulse laser; small pulse laser is adopted to assist in eliminating the self-selection effect of target fragments, and the power loss of the ultrashort pulse laser is reduced; the large pulse laser is adopted to realize the rail falling of the target fragments; by adopting the medium pulse width pulse laser, the coupling effect of the ultrashort pulse laser and the target fragment is enhanced, the absorption of the ultrashort pulse laser by the plasma is reduced, and the ultrashort pulse can accurately and effectively reach the surface of the target fragment.)

1. A method for removing small-size space debris is characterized in that multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is adopted to irradiate target debris, wherein the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser comprises low-power short pulse laser, medium-power short pulse laser and high-power short pulse laser;

irradiating the target fragments by using low-power short-pulse laser to eliminate the spin effect of the target fragments; irradiating the target fragment by adopting medium-power short-pulse laser, and performing preliminary speed reduction and track reduction on the target fragment; and irradiating the target fragments by adopting high-power short-impact laser, reducing the track height of the target fragments and ablating and removing the target fragments.

2. A method for removing debris from a space of small dimensions according to claim 1, wherein the power of the short pulse laser of low power is 50-100 KW; the power of the medium-power short-pulse laser is 250-350 KW; the power of the high-power short-pulse laser is 500-850 KW.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is emitted by a nanosecond/femtosecond ultrashort pulse laser emitter.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the multi-beam combination ultra-short pulse laser has a repetition rate of 50Hz and a power density in the range of 10⁸-10¹⁰W/cm²The wavelength is 532-1064 nm.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the multi-beam combination ultra-short pulse laser is a ground-based laser or a space-based laser.

6. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the nanosecond/femtosecond ultrashort pulse laser emitter is disposed in a region with thin air on the earth or in outer space.

7. A method for removing small-sized space debris according to claim 1, wherein the flying height of the target debris is a near-ground track below 2000 km; the target debris is space debris with the size of 1-10cm and the mass of less than 5 kg.

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the technical field of space flight control, and particularly relates to a method for removing small-size space debris.

Background

Space debris is a general name of all man-made objects which do not have functions on the earth orbit. With the rapid development of aerospace industry in the world, more and more spacecrafts are launched and put into orbit by human beings, and more space debris are generated along with the spacecrafts. The space refuse without function seriously threatens the safety of the on-orbit spacecraft and causes great threat to the life and property of the spacecraft and the astronauts.

According to the national aeronautics and astronautics administration (NASA) research, the near-earth orbit most frequently used by humans is a region where most space debris is densely distributed; space debris that reaches a supercritical state may in the future cause a cascade collision reaction between space objects. The existing nanosecond pulse laser driving technology is used for detecting and tracking small-size space fragments by applying transient high-energy laser irradiation, wherein the small-size space fragments refer to the space fragments with the size of 1-10 cm; the irradiation drives the space debris to lower or raise the orbit of the space debris, so that the space debris enters the atmosphere and is burnt or leaves a belt-shaped annular protection area to achieve the aim of cleaning; this technique has the advantages of no contamination, high efficiency, and low cost, and is considered to be the most potential active removal method.

Currently, common space debris cleaning methods include electric power cable, fly net capture, mechanical arm capture, and laser irradiation; the most key defects of electric power cable, flying net capture and mechanical arm capture are that the capture equipment needs to be carried to the space with high cost, and if the equipment is out of control, the equipment becomes new space garbage again, so that the safety of the on-orbit aircraft is threatened; the existing laser irradiation method has a plasma shielding effect in the cleaning process, is difficult to overcome the spin effect of space debris, and has low cleaning efficiency.

Disclosure of Invention

Aiming at the technical problems in the prior art, the invention provides a small-size space debris removing method, aiming at solving the problems that the removing efficiency is low, the plasma shielding effect exists in the removing process and the space debris spinning effect is difficult to overcome in the existing laser radiation removing method.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the technical scheme that:

the invention provides a method for removing small-size space debris, which is characterized in that a multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is adopted to irradiate target debris, wherein the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser comprises a small-power short pulse laser, a medium-power short pulse laser and a high-power short pulse laser;

irradiating the target fragments by using low-power short-pulse laser to eliminate the spin effect of the target fragments; irradiating the target fragment by adopting medium-power short-pulse laser, and performing preliminary speed reduction and track reduction on the target fragment; and irradiating the target fragments by adopting high-power short-impact laser, reducing the track height of the target fragments and ablating and removing the target fragments.

Furthermore, the power of the low-power short pulse laser is 50-100 KW; the power of the medium-power short-pulse laser is 250-350 KW; the power of the high-power short-pulse laser is 500-850 KW.

Furthermore, the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is emitted by a nanosecond/femtosecond ultrashort pulse laser emitter.

Further, the repetition frequency of the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is 50Hz, and the power density range is 10⁸-10¹⁰W/cm²The wavelength is 532-1064 nm.

Further, the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is a ground-based laser or a space-based laser.

Further, nanosecond/femtosecond ultrashort pulse laser transmitters are arranged in regions with thin air on the earth or in outer space.

Further, the flight height of the target fragments is below 2000 km; the target debris is space debris with the size of 1-10cm and the mass of less than 5 kg.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that:

the invention provides a method for removing small-size space debris, which adopts multi-beam combination ultrashort laser irradiation to remove the space debris, adopts low-power short pulse laser to assist in eliminating the spin effect of target debris, and reduces the power loss of the short pulse laser; irradiating the target fragments by adopting high-power short-pulse laser to realize the track descending of the target fragments; the target fragments are irradiated by the medium-power short-pulse laser, so that the coupling effect of the ultrashort-pulse laser and the target fragments is enhanced, the purpose of reducing the orbit of the target fragments is achieved, high-concentration plasma generated on the surfaces of the fragments when the space fragments are irradiated by the laser is avoided, the absorption of the plasma on the incident ultrashort-pulse laser is reduced, and the ultrashort-pulse can accurately and effectively reach the surfaces of the target fragments; the invention belongs to a non-contact type clearing method, and has the advantages of low cost, high reliability, safety, controllability and reusability.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the working principle of the method for removing the small-sized space debris according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a graph showing the simulation effect of the embodiment on the target debris ablation by using a short pulse laser with a power of 100 kw;

FIG. 3 is a graph showing the simulation effect of the embodiment on the target debris ablation by using a short pulse laser with a power of 300 kw;

FIG. 4 is a graph showing the effect of the simulation of the embodiment in which the target debris is ablated by a short pulse laser with a power of 500 kw.

Detailed Description

The invention is described in further detail below with reference to the figures and the specific embodiments; the following specific embodiments are provided to illustrate the present invention, but are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

The invention provides a method for removing small-size space debris, which adopts multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser to irradiate the small-size space debris, wherein the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser comprises small-power short pulse laser, medium-power short pulse laser and high-power short pulse laser.

Irradiating the target fragments by using low-power short-pulse laser, and eliminating the spin effect of the target fragments, wherein the power of the low-power short-pulse laser is 50-100 KW; irradiating the target fragment by adopting medium-power short-pulse laser, and performing initial orbit reduction on the target fragment; the power of the medium-power short-pulse laser is 250-350KW, and the pulse width of the medium-power short-pulse laser is smaller than the plasma generation time of the target fragment; and irradiating the target fragments by adopting high-power short-pulse laser for reducing the track height of the target fragments and ablating and clearing the target fragments, wherein the power of the high-power short-pulse laser is 500-850 KW.

The multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is foundation laser or space-based laser, the foundation laser is emitted by an ultrashort pulse laser emitter arranged in a thin air region on the earth, the space-based laser is emitted by an ultrashort pulse laser emitter arranged in outer space, and the space-based laser carries the ultrashort pulse laser emitter on the existing aerospace craft; the ultrashort pulse laser emitter adopts a nanosecond/femtosecond ultrashort pulse laser emitter.

The repetition frequency of the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is 50Hz, and the power density range is 10⁸-10¹⁰W/cm²The wavelength is 532-1064 nm.

Principle of operation

The invention relates to a method for removing small-size space debris, which adopts multi-beam combination ultrashort laser irradiation to remove the space debris, wherein, low-power short pulse laser is adopted to irradiate the target debris to eliminate the spin effect of the target debris; irradiating the target fragment by adopting medium-power short-pulse laser to preliminarily reduce the track height of the target fragment; the high-power short pulse laser is adopted to irradiate the target fragments, and a certain plasma shielding effect is inevitably generated in the process of laser ablation of the fragments, so that the high-power short pulse laser is adopted to ablate and remove the track height of the target fragments and the target fragments, and the cost for cleaning the space fragments is greatly reduced.

Laser power energy aspect

The small-power short pulse laser and the high-power short pulse laser are provided aiming at the influences of factors such as reduced clear effect and low efficiency caused by the influence of the pulse width of the short pulse laser when the space debris is cleared by spinning and the like existing in the movement process of the small-size space debris and the pulse laser, the small-power short pulse laser is responsible for eliminating the spinning effect of the target debris, and the high-power short pulse laser is responsible for reducing the track height of the target debris and thoroughly ablating and clearing the target debris.

Specifically, because the small-scale space debris rotates at a super high speed in the outer space, the small-scale space debris has great kinetic energy; when the target fragments are ablated by the short pulse laser, the same position of the target fragments is difficult to continuously ablate; meanwhile, the density of the plasma plume generated by the target piece is reduced, so that the reverse acting force applied to the target piece is reduced, the speed change of the target piece is slow, the orbit reduction effect is poor, and the consumed pulse laser energy is large; according to the invention, the self-selection effect of the target fragments is eliminated by adopting the low-power short pulse laser, so that the power loss of the ultrashort pulse laser is reduced; meanwhile, the target fragments are irradiated by high-power short-pulse laser, so that the target fragments are descended and completely ablated and gasified; the target fragments are irradiated by the medium-power short-pulse laser, so that the coupling effect of the ultrashort-pulse laser and the target fragments is enhanced, and the purpose of reducing the orbit of the target fragments is achieved; the high-concentration plasma generated on the surface of the space debris when the space debris is irradiated by the laser is avoided, the absorption of the plasma on the incident ultrashort pulse laser is reduced, and the ultrashort pulse can accurately and effectively reach the surface of the target debris.

Laser pulse width aspect

The plasma on the surface of the target fragment can shield the irradiated laser, and the generation of the plasma has a certain space-time distribution rule; when the multi-beam combined ultrashort pulse laser is used for reducing the orbit of a target fragment and clearing the target fragment, the high-power short pulse width laser is used for irradiating the space fragment, and when plasma is to be generated by irradiation ablation, the medium-level pulse width laser is used for irradiation, so that the irradiation time is in a plasma generation gap every time, and the shielding effect of the plasma on subsequent incident laser can be avoided.

Aiming at the requirements of a small-scale space debris removal method, the invention aims to solve the problems of low removal efficiency, plasma shielding effect in the removal process and difficulty in overcoming the spin effect in the existing laser removal method; by increasing the laser number of laser irradiation and irradiating the space debris by the multi-beam combination ultrashort pulse laser, the cleaning efficiency is improved, and the influence of the plasma shielding effect on the cleaning process is avoided, so that the track is successfully reduced or the space debris is completely ablated and gasified, and the method is a safe and efficient space debris cleaning method.