Presentation of the Pc Version of the Esabase/debris Impact Analysis Tool

ESABASE is a framework of space environment analysis tools known and accepted by European industry. It allows to predict the exposure of an orbiting spacecraft to its environmental conditions induced e.g. by sunlight, atomic oxygen, radiation and impacts from meteoroids and space debris However, similar to other European tools in the space environment and also the thermal analysis domain, the ESABASE framework was ageing. Restrictions affecting the graphical capabilities, the data handling or the post processing became more and more evident and caused increasing user dissatisfaction. In view of that fact ESA took the initiative to port the debris application of ESABASE to PC platforms. This paper provides an insight to PC ESABASE – the result of this activity. PC ESABASE is composed of an up-to-date framework based on Open Source components like the Eclipse Graphical User Interface or the OpenCascade CAD library, and the previously existing well established debris models like MASTER. This paper introduces the capabilities of the ESABASE framework together with the debris application. It will demonstrate the modern user interface as well a new ray tracing algorithm and the integration of the ORDEM2000 debris model