Assessing Compliance with United States Government Orbital Debris Mitigation Guidelines

There are currently no exceptions or special considerations for CubeSats in the United States Government (USG) Orbital Debris (OD) Mitigation Guidelines. For all objects launched into space the 2010 United States Space Policy requires that any failure to comply with the USG OD Mitigation Guidelines requires approval by the head of the launching agency. In addition it requires that the US Secretary of State be notified of any noncompliance. For these reasons it is important that missions consider these policies during their design phase. This paper will discuss methods to assess compliance with USG OD mitigation guidelines as they apply to CubeSat missions using tools such as the NASA Debris Assessment Software (DAS).