A Method for Calculating Collision Probability Between Space Objects

Abstract

A method is developed to calculate collision probability in this paper. Based on the encounter geometric features of space objects, it is reasonable to separate the radial orbital motions from that in the cross section for most encounter events in near circular orbit. Therefore, the collision probability caused by orbit altitude difference in the radial direction and the collision probability caused by arrival time difference in the cross section are calculated respectively. The net collision probability is expressed as an explicit expression by multiplying the above two components. Numerical cases are applied to test this method by comparing the results with the general method. The results indicate that this method is valid for most near circular orbital encounter events.