A Scheduling-Support Tool for Acquisition Timeline Determination of Fragmentation Debris Clouds Using DLR’s Telescopes

Fragmentation events generate debris clouds that pose an immediate risk to operational spacecraft and require rapid characterization. This paper presents a dedicated tool to assess the feasibility and timing of debris-cloud acquisition using DLR’s ground-based SMARTnet telescopes. Fragment orbital states are generated using the NASA Standard Breakup Model (SBM), ensuring physically consistent ΔV and size distributions. The fragment population is then propagated to derive the corresponding visibility windows under realistic geometric and operational constraints, so that observability is directly driven by the SBM-based debris distribution. A Lambert-based analysis is applied to identify the spatial positions dynamically reachable by fragments subject to ΔV values compatible with the SBM, enabling a consistent reconstruction of the post-fragmentation cloud. The methodology estimates the time required to progressively catalogue the debris cloud and is demonstrated on representative GEO fragmentation scenarios.