Costs and benefits of space debris mitigation

We conducted a series of simulations of several LEO missions to examine the cost effect of a growing debris population for several different mitigation scenarios. By comparing the best and worst of these, we find that it is cost-effective to raise mission costs by about 1-1.5 percent now, and still save money by reducing mission costs in the long run. This compares with 3-4 percent according to an earlier estimate by Greenberg and Reynolds . We also made a simple calculation of the cost of end of life orbit-raising of geostationary satellites. (Author)