Abstract:

The space-based debris observation experiment under the night airglow background is designed and completed, and the observation data in the comprehensive spectrum is obtained. The radiation characteristics of the night airglow and its effects on the space-based debris detection are analyzed based on the observation data. The results show that the distribution characteristics of the night airglow radiation with latitude and altitude are consistent with the theoretical distribution law of the night airglow. The radiation is the strongest at about 90 km, and the brightness can reach nearly 15 star magnitude per square arc second per unit integral time, which has a great impact on the probability of the star and debris extraction, among them, the probability of the 13 magnitude stars extraction is only 40.5%.

Key words: Night airglow, Space-based, Optical detection, Spacecraft