DASC 2025: Preparing for Potential Closure of European Airspaces due to Re-entering Space Objects

This repository contains the source materials and pointers to the supporting code for the paper:

Preparing for Potential Closure of European Airspaces due to Re-entering Space Objects
Enrico Spinielli, Rainer Koelle, Quinten Goens
EUROCONTROL, Aviation Intelligence Unit, Brussels, Belgium

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🛰️ Overview

The increasing frequency of uncontrolled space debris re-entries poses an emerging threat to aviation safety over Europe. This study proposes a data-driven approach to support decision-making for potential airspace closures in response to such re-entries.

We present a methodology that:

• Uses actual flight trajectory data from EUROCONTROL's Network Manager
• Employs H3 geospatial indexing to generate hourly and daily flight densities
• Computes mid-air impact probabilities for debris re-entry corridors
• Aims to inform authorities and stakeholders of exposure and required mitigation actions

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📄 Abstract

With the growth in space activities and orbital objects, the likelihood of uncontrolled space object re-entries intersecting flight paths increases. This paper presents a practical methodology for computing time-varying flight density maps based on actual flight trajectories using H3 geospatial bins. These maps, when combined with modeled re-entry paths and risk buffers, yield dynamic mid-air impact probabilities. The results can support authorities in determining when to implement airspace closures or re-routings.

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📁 Repository Structure

.
├── media/                  # Figures, preamble, acronyms, and HTML/LaTeX header includes
├── _extensions/            # LaTeX extensions
├── R/                      # Scripts for trajectory processing, visualizing and H3 binning
├── abstract_dasc25.qmd     # Abstract Quarto manuscript
├── paper.qmd               # Quarto manuscript (IEEE format)
├── paper.pdf               # PDF manuscript (IEEE format)
├── README.md               # This file
└── media/references.bib    # Bibliography

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🛠️ Reproducing the Paper

This project uses Quarto for multi-format scientific publishing.

Requirements

• Quarto
• A working LaTeX distribution
• R (for statistical scripts, if applicable)

Rendering the Paper

quarto render paper.qmd --to ieee-pdf
# Or for HTML output:
quarto render paper.qmd --to ieee-html

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📊 Data & Methodology

• Flight Density: Constructed using historical trajectories recorded by EUROCONTROL's Network Manager.
• Spatial Binning: Flight points are aggregated using Uber’s H3 hexagonal indexing system.
• Risk Estimation: Mid-air probabilities are computed along potential re-entry corridors.
• Demonstration Case: Includes an analysis of an expected re-entry from a 1972 failed USSR Venus mission.

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📬 Contact

• Enrico Spinielli — [email protected]
• Rainer Koelle — [email protected]
• Quinten Goens — [email protected]

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📄 Citation

If you use or refer to this work, please cite it as:

@article{spinielli2025airspace,
  title     = {Preparing for Potential Closure of European Airspaces due to Re-entering Space Objects},
  author    = {Spinielli, Enrico and Koelle, Rainer and Goens, Quinten},
  year      = {2025},
  institution = {EUROCONTROL}
}

Developed by the Aviation Intelligence Unit at EUROCONTROL.