Reconnecting groups of space debris to their parent body through proper elements.

Satellite collisions or fragmentations generate a huge number of space debris; over time, the fragments might get dispersed, making it difficult to associate them to the configuration at break-up. In this work, we present a procedure to back-trace the debris, reconnecting them to their original configuration. To this end, we compute the proper elements, namely dynamical quantities which stay nearly constant over time. While the osculating elements might spread and lose connection with the values at break-up, the proper elements, which have been already successfully used to identify asteroid families, retain the dynamical features of the original configuration. We show the efficacy of the procedure, based on a hierarchical implementation of perturbation theory, by analyzing the following four different case studies associated to satellites that underwent a catastrophic event: Ariane 44lp, Atlas V Centaur, CZ-3, Titan IIIc Transtage. The link between (initial and final) osculating and proper elements is evaluated through tools of statistical data analysis. The results show that proper elements allow one to reconnect the fragments to their parent body.