Probabilistic Safety Analysis of the Collision Between a Space Debris and a Satellite with an Island Particle Algorithm

Collision between satellites and space debris seldom happens, but the loss of a satellite by collision may have catastrophic consequences both for the satellite mission and for the space environment. To support the decision to trigger off a collision avoidance manoeuver, an adapted tool is the determination of the collision probability between debris and satellite. This probability estimation can be performed with rare event simulation techniques when Monte Carlo techniques are not enough accurate. In this chapter, we focus on analyzing the influence of different simulation parameters (such as the drag coefficient) that are set for to simplify the simulation, on the collision probability estimation. A bad estimation of these simulation parameters can strongly modify rare event probability estimations. We design here a new island particle Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to determine the parameters that, in case of bad estimation, tend to increase the collision probability value. This algorithm also gives an estimate of the collision probability maximum taking into account the likelihood of the parameters. The principles of this statistical technique are described throughout this chapter.