Debris mitigation
Compliance Report Generator
One disposal plan, checked against every debris-mitigation regime that matters — FCC, ESA, the legacy 25-year rule, and reentry casualty risk — as a clean, printable report in the style of an Orbital Debris Assessment Report (ODAR).
// Runs the deorbit-lifetime + reentry-casualty engines and assembles a filing-support screening report. Print or Save-as-PDF from your browser. First-order screening — not a substitute for a certified NASA DAS / ORSAT run.
The generator runs two engines over one input set: the King-Hele orbital-lifetime model against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 5-year rule, the European Space Agency (ESA) Zero Debris standard, and the legacy 25-year guideline; and the debris-casualty-area model against the U.S. Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices (ODMSP) / NASA-STD-8719.14 1-in-10,000 reentry-casualty limit. Each requirement is laid out with its finding and a pass/fail verdict — with remediation options where a requirement is missed — and the whole document prints, or saves as PDF, straight from your browser.
What this report is (and isn't)
The 2024 FCC 5-year rule and ESA's Zero Debris standard turned "what's your disposal plan?" into a hard filing gate. This tool takes one mission's disposal orbit and spacecraft breakdown and produces an ODAR-style (Orbital Debris Assessment Report) screening document: it runs the King-Hele orbital-lifetime model against the FCC 5-year, ESA Zero Debris, and legacy 25-year limits, and the debris-casualty-area model against the ODMSP / NASA-STD-8719.14 1-in-10,000 reentry-casualty limit, then lays out the requirement, the finding, and the pass/fail for each — with remediation options where a requirement is missed.
It is filing support and early-design verification, not a certified submission. The underlying models are first-order screens (orbital lifetime carries ~10–50% uncertainty from future solar activity; the casualty screen uses a binary per-material demise rule, not full ORSAT ablation). Use it to know where you stand and what to fix long before you pay for a consultant-week or a full NASA DAS / ORSAT run — then confirm marginal findings with the agency-accepted tool before you submit. The report states this scope on its face.
Mission
Disposal orbit & spacecraft
Components (survivability)
// the report below prints clean — use your browser's "Save as PDF".
Orbital Debris Assessment — Screening Report
Example EO Smallsat
1. Disposal plan
Passive atmospheric reentry from the operational orbit at end of mission; no active deorbit propulsion.
| Disposal orbit | 550 × 550 km, 51.6° incl. |
| Disposal mass / drag area | 200 kg / 1.2 m² (β = 75.8 kg/m²) |
| Reentry mode | Uncontrolled |
| Estimated natural lifetime | 4.46 yr |
2. Requirement assessment
| Regime | Requirement | Finding | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| FCC 5-year rule (47 CFR 25.283) | Post-mission orbital lifetime ≤ 5 years (LEO below 2000 km). | Estimated natural lifetime 4.46 years. | PASS |
| ESA Zero Debris (ESSB-ST-U-007) | Post-mission orbital lifetime < 5 years. | Estimated natural lifetime 4.46 years. | PASS |
| Legacy 25-year guideline (IADC / NASA-STD-8719.14) | Post-mission orbital lifetime ≤ 25 years. | Estimated natural lifetime 4.46 years. | PASS |
| Reentry casualty risk (ODMSP / NASA-STD-8719.14) | Expected casualties from an uncontrolled reentry < 1 in 10,000 (E_c < 1×10⁻⁴). | Screened casualty expectation E_c = 1.89e-4 (1 in 5,299); 3 surviving component(s), 2.76 m² debris casualty area. | FAIL |
3. Remediation options
- Reduce surviving debris casualty area via design-for-demise (replace surviving titanium/steel/glass items with demisable materials), or perform a controlled targeted-ocean reentry (~1000× exposure reduction).
Scope & limitations
This is a first-order screening report, generated from parametric physics models (King-Hele atmospheric decay; a per-material demise + debris-casualty-area estimate). It is intended as filing support and early-design verification, not as a substitute for a certified NASA DAS orbital-lifetime run or an ORSAT reentry-survivability analysis. Lifetime estimates carry ~10–50% uncertainty from future solar activity. Confirm marginal findings with the appropriate agency-accepted tool before submission.
Common questions
What is an ODAR?
An Orbital Debris Assessment Report — the debris-mitigation assessment regulators expect alongside a mission filing: the disposal plan, the predicted post-mission orbital lifetime, and the reentry casualty risk, each checked against the applicable limit. Since the 2024 FCC 5-year rule and ESA's Zero Debris standard, "what's your disposal plan?" is a hard filing gate, and this tool assembles exactly that requirement / finding / pass-fail structure from your inputs.
Which debris-compliance rules does the report check?
Four regimes in one pass: the FCC 5-year rule (in force since September 2024), the ESA Zero Debris standard, the legacy 25-year guideline, and the ODMSP / NASA-STD-8719.14 limit of 1-in-10,000 on reentry casualty risk. Where a requirement is missed, the report lists remediation options — added drag area or a disposal burn for lifetime, and design changes for casualty risk. How the regimes themselves differ — scope, effective dates, casualty limits — is laid out in the FCC 5-year rule vs ESA Zero Debris vs 25-year guideline comparison.
Can I file this report with the FCC?
It is filing support and early-design verification, not a certified submission — the report states that scope on its face. Use it to know where you stand and what to fix long before you pay for a consultant-week; then confirm marginal findings with the agency-accepted tools — a NASA DAS (Debris Assessment Software) or ORSAT run — before you submit.
How accurate are the lifetime and casualty numbers?
They are first-order screens. The orbital-lifetime model carries roughly 10–50% uncertainty, dominated by future solar activity, and the casualty screen uses a binary per-material demise rule rather than full ORSAT ablation modelling. Clear passes and clear failures are decision-grade; treat marginal findings as "verify with the certified tool".
Where do the underlying numbers come from?
The report composes the same physics that runs the standalone satellite deorbit compliance calculator and reentry casualty risk calculators — use those pages to explore any single finding in depth, then come back here to assemble the document. For the physics underneath the lifetime finding, read the FCC 5-year rule and CubeSat orbital decay deep dive.
