Since realising the idea that a man-made object can be intentionally placed into the Earth’s orbit, almost 10,000 satellites have been launched for multiple scientific, commercial and military purposes. These activities produce a huge amount of junk comprised not only of defunct artificial objects that no longer serve a useful purpose, but various collisions, explosions and leaks have produced millions of pieces of objects of size varying from micrometers to meters. Space debris pose a threat to sustainable space and to the near-earth environment at large. As a result, there is a need for the removal of such objects in a controlled and well-planned manner, or at least safeguarding the most precious satellites from collisions. Among the proposed techniques to avoid collisions, the orbital laser momentum transfer method has good potential for altering the orbits of high area-to-mass-ratio objects ($A/m\gtrsim 1{\text{m}}^2/\text{kg}$, typically a few cm in size), that are too numerous for capturing techniques. The method is based on the idea of illuminating the target with a laser that induces radiation force. Here we show that the control of the debris can be further improved by using the polarisation of the laser beam. Certain amount of debris objects, maybe around 10–20%, pose asymmetric against the beam, and reflect light asymmetrically and significantly polarisation-dependent. This provides an opportunity for the closed-ended problem by introducing an additional degree of freedom for the direction of induced momentum. We present the theory for polarised light dynamics, and develop a new scattering model for reflective space debris. The model is supplemented with laboratory measurements. We show that asymmetry of the targeted object in itself may turn the momentum 1–30° for typical debris objects, and polarisation of the incident beam is capable of further affecting this direction by several degrees.

自从意识到可以将人造物体故意放入地球轨道的想法以来，已经发射了近10,000颗卫星，用于多种科学，商业和军事目的。这些活动产生了大量的垃圾，这些垃圾不仅包括已经不再有用的已废弃的人造物体，而且各种碰撞，爆炸和泄漏已经产生了数百万个尺寸从微米到米的物体。空间碎片对可持续空间和整个近地环境构成威胁。结果，需要以受控和精心计划的方式移出这些物体，或者至少保护最珍贵的卫星免于碰撞。在建议的避免碰撞的技术中，$\mathrm{一种}/米\gtrsim \mathrm{1个}{\text{米}}^2/\text{公斤}$（通常只有几厘米），对于捕获技术来说实在太多了。该方法基于用感应辐射力的激光照射目标的想法。在这里我们表明，通过使用激光束的偏振可以进一步改善对碎片的控制。一定数量的碎片对象（大约10–20％）相对于光束不对称，并且反射的光不对称且偏振相关。通过为感应动量的方向引入额外的自由度，这为封闭问题提供了机会。我们提出了偏振光动力学的理论，并为反射性空间碎片开发了一种新的散射模型。该模型补充了实验室测量值。