Removing space debris by high-energy pulsed laser may be the most effective way to mitigate the threat posed by the increasing space debris. Laser ablation of a thin surface layer causes recoil impulse, which will lower the orbit perigee of space debris and accelerate the atmospheric capture. When the laser beam vertically irradiates a flat debris, it requires a certain laser fluence to reach the optimal impulse coupling, and the recoil impulse is parallel to the laser beam. However, the incident laser fluence varies in different parts of a non-flat surface. We have taken the shape effect into account to propose a numerical method of calculating the recoil impulse. Taking cylinder debris as the target, we have compared the recoil impulse in different laser fluences through simulation experiments, which implies that a higher laser fluence than the optimal one is needed to obtain a larger recoil impulse for irregularly shaped space debris.
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