Abstract The increase in space debris orbiting Earth is a critical problem for future space missions. Space debris removal has thus become an area of interest, and significant research progress is being made in this field. However, the exorbitant cost of space debris removal missions is a major concern for commercial space companies. We therefore propose the debris removal using electromagnetic launcher (DREL) system, a ground-based electromagnetic launch system (railgun), for space debris removal missions. The DREL system has three components: a ground-based electromagnetic launcher (GEML), suborbital vehicle (SOV), and mass of micrometer-scale dust (MSD) particles. The average cost of removing a piece of low-earth orbit space debris using DREL was found to be approximately USD 160,000. The DREL method is thus shown to be economical; the total cost to remove more than 2,000 pieces of debris in a cluster was only approximately USD 400 million, compared to the millions of dollars required to remove just one or two pieces of debris using a conventional space debris removal mission. By using DREL, the cost of entering space is negligible, thereby enabling countries to remove their space debris in an affordable manner.

中文翻译：

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基于电磁发射的低成本空间碎片清除方法

摘要 围绕地球运行的空间碎片的增加是未来太空任务的关键问题。因此，空间碎片清除已成为一个令人感兴趣的领域，该领域正在取得重大研究进展。然而，空间碎片清除任务的高昂成本是商业航天公司的主要关注点。因此，我们建议使用电磁发射器 (DREL) 系统清除碎片，这是一种地面电磁发射系统（轨道炮），用于空间碎片清除任务。DREL 系统由三个部分组成：地基电磁发射器 (GEML)、亚轨道飞行器 (SOV) 和大量微米级尘埃 (MSD) 粒子。发现使用 DREL 清除一块低地球轨道空间碎片的平均成本约为 160,000 美元。因此，DREL 方法被证明是经济的；在一个集群中清除 2,000 多块碎片的总成本仅为大约 4 亿美元，而使用传统的空间碎片清除任务只需要清除一两块碎片就需要数百万美元。通过使用 DREL，进入太空的成本可以忽略不计，从而使各国能够以负担得起的方式清除其空间碎片。