The collision between two satellites in 2009 caused the amount of space debris in orbit to rise drastically. Especially, the announced mega-constellations with thousands of satellites to be launched in the next few years will increase the amount of satellites in orbit even more. Even before, in the early 2000s when the satellite launches per year increased the call for Space Traffic Management (STM) arose. In order to keep the access to space and the satellites in orbit safe and secure, a framework of laws and policies but also necessary technology to avoid collisions automatically or to communicate amongst different spacecraft are not yet defined. The more and more arising methods of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) regime look promising to support the development and operation and can facilitate the autonomy of STM and collision avoidance systems. The aim of this thesis is to give a broad overview of the current status of STM and collision avoidance in terms of technology. Furthermore, it shall explore the capabilities of AI to support STM and collision avoidance.

The collision between two satellites in 2009 caused the amount of space debris in orbit to rise drastically. Especially, the announced mega-constellations with thousands of satellites to be launched in the next few years will increase the amount of satellites in orbit even more which in turn will increase the risk of collisions. In order to keep the access to space and the satellites in orbit safe and secure, the amount of debris orbiting Earth has to be reduced. Space agencies like ESA but also the private space industry is working on missions and technologies to de-orbit existing debris. Instead of using heavy missions in terms of spacecraft size, complexity and development cost, the possibility to use commercial satellites like off-the-shelf CubeSats and distribute the tasks between several small spacecraft working together in a swarm can be worth exploring. This thesis shall evaluate the possibility to de-orbit space debris with the use of a swarm of small spacecraft. The focus shall be in regard to the debris size, the amount of debris a swarm of satellites can remove, which removal method is most effective for such a concept and how a possible debris removal mission can look like for a formation of small satellites.