Prof. Vladimir Aslanov has presented a new conception for active debris removal utilizing gravitational field of an orbital collector. The orbital collector is a large spacecraft that attracts orbital debris in GEO.
The aim of this paper is to provide a simple principle of a reusable, long-term space debris collection system in GEO. The method is based on the use of the unstable libration points L1 or L2 for the two main objects: the Earth and a heavy orbital collector (a moon). The chaser is placed on a line connecting the Earth and the space debris (target), so that the target is located at a small distance from the unstable libration points L1 or L2 towards the chaser. In this configuration the Earth-Target-Chaser system, the target will be attracted to the chaser.
For the scope of this paper only in-plane motion of the chaser and the target are considered. If perturbations are absent the target will no longer leave the vicinity of the chaser, bounded by the Hill sphere.
