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 deorbit & lifetime compliance and reentry casualty risk calculators — use those pages to explore any single finding in depth, then come back here to assemble the document.
