Collision-safe reflector sizing for Mars orbit

Determine how large individual orbiting solar reflectors must be to reduce the total number of spacecraft in Mars orbit sufficiently to keep a constellation operationally collision-safe.

Background

The paper proposes a Mars-orbiting solar-reflector constellation to double year-averaged insolation at a human base. Its representative design uses tens of thousands of relatively small reflectors distributed across multiple altitude shells and orbital rings. However, the authors note that collision-safe operation may require fewer, individually larger spacecraft, because the proposed constellation introduces substantial space-traffic and debris-management challenges. The unresolved problem is to determine the reflector size and corresponding constellation architecture that can preserve equivalent sunlight delivery while ensuring operational collision safety.