Inter-Agency Space Debris Co-ordination Committee (IADC) Studies 2025-26

• Value: £21K

Lot 1.1: Analysis of the data from EISCAT Beampark Campaign Total Contract Value: Up to £25,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months Characterisation of the Small Debris Space Environment remains an ongoing critical challenge for addressing space sustainability. NSpOC has previously funded a 24 hour beampark campaign using the EISCAT UHF radar system with the raw data analysed through an ESA contract. At the recent IADC, it was discussed that shorter follow up beamparks targeting specific fragmentation events would also be very beneficial. As a result of this, NSpOC has arranged for a further 24 hours of time but split up over 6 x 4 hr sessions targeting the recent CZ-6A fragmentation. The campaigns target 200-2000 km with a 75E pointing direction. We require a supplier to analyse the raw data to pull out detections and use the circular orbit assumption to extract an orbital inclination and altitude and make an assessment of object size based on the signal strength.

• Value: £125K

Characterisation and modelling of meteoroid and debris around the Earth and storage and access of the data by electronic means, including meteoroid and debris models, short and long-term evolution, collision prediction and risk assessment. Lot 2.1: Assess the utility of existing metrics and develop new metrics for space environment Total Contract Value: Up to £50,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months Review the formulation of existing proposals of metrics for the space environment to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Develop environment-level metrics that can be used to quantify the status of the orbital debris environment and define its sustainable use. Compare proposed metrics against other indicators and metrics of the space environment to understand their respective strengths and weaknesses and to establish their utility in understanding sustainable space activities. Lot 2.2: Develop software and tools to assess the environment Total Contract Value: Up to £50,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months Develop key software components and tools to establish further UK capability to model the long-term evolution of the space environment. Apply to software and tools to benchmark cases against other internationally developed models. Lot 2.3: Timelines for End of Life (EOL) disposal Total Contract Value: Up to £50,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months Quantitative assessment of the impacts of reducing the lifetime of the spacecraft at End-of-Life considering residence time in congested areas e.g. constellation shells, space stations. An assessment of risk and approaches to orbit design which may minimise risk and improve sustainability of the missions.

• Value: £62K

Design and technology of shielding against meteoroids and space debris and the associated test methods which include test facility and procedure, hypervelocity impact data, simulation software. Lot 3.1: Explore options for simple thresholds to quantify the vulnerability of spacecraft to impacts Total Contract Value: Up to £25,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months The national and international standards dealing with space debris mitigation, requirements are provided based on the size of space debris that is likely to create a spacecraft failure in terms of probability of loss of functionality leading to the loss of collision avoidance manoeuvre capability and/or post mission disposal capability. We are looking for suppliers to address this topic to support the development of impact vulnerability-based thresholds that can be used in future as simplified metrics and provide an adequate and sound basis. The intention is to focus on design-dependent spacecraft vulnerability. Lot 3.2: Define fragmentation event simulations for multiple simplified modern spacecraft designs (geometries, materials) and collision conditions (e.g. impactor properties, impact location, velocity, incidence angle) and characterise the fragments generated for different collision conditions Total Contract Value: Up to £50,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months The national and international standards dealing with space debris mitigation, assume on the size or energy of space debris that is likely to create a catastrophic break-up and generate the related fragment distributions. In practice, the employed definition of "catastrophic" to justify the "critical" threshold of the space debris involved is often qualitative and limited by the availability of the state-of-the-art research. We are looking for suppliers to characterise fragments released in hypervelocity impacts that can be used in future for deriving fragmentation severity.

• Value: £42K

Study of all measures to reduce or avoid the creation of space debris or reduce the hazards created by space debris. This includes identification of space debris sources, design and operation of space systems to avoid or reduce the creation of space debris, guidelines for debris mitigation. Lot 4.1: Lunar Debris Mitigation Guidelines - further work on disposal options Total Contract Value: Up to £25,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months Given the sustainability challenges that the Cislunar environment presents, the UK Space Agency is keen to support the development of new guidelines for the sustainable use of Cislunar space and is therefore commissioning this study to identify key research gaps and further develop the work carried out in the previous studies to feed directly into the a forementioned international forums. The outputs of this study may also be used by the UK Space Agency and wider UK Government to inform new regulatory policy for future UK-licensed lunar missions. Lot 4.2: Assessment of technologies driving post-mission disposal reliability Total Contract Value: Up to £25,000 (inclusive of VAT) Total Contract Duration: 6 months Investigate the merits of higher post-mission disposal success rates, looking at reliability based on mass, collision probability, orbital location, propulsion reliability and other relevant parameters. Include analysis of constellations specifically to support recommendations that constellations have higher success rates.