Open Access
Natural and orbital debris particles on LDEF's trailing and forward-facing surfaces
Friedrich Hoerz,Thomas H. See,Ronald P. Bernhard,Donald E. Brownlee +3 more
- 01 Feb 1995
pp 415-429
TL;DR: In this paper, a systematic survey of gold and aluminum surfaces exposed at the trailing-edge (A03) and forward-facing (A11) LDEF sites, respectively, was conducted to determine the compositional make-up of projectile residues.
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Abstract: Approximately 1000 impact craters on the Chemistry of Meteoroid Experiment (CME) have been analyzed by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDXA) to determine the compositional make-up of projectile residues. This report completes our systematic survey of gold and aluminum surfaces exposed at the trailing-edge (A03) and forward-facing (A11) LDEF sites, respectively. The major categories for the projectile residues were (1) natural, with diverse subgroups such as chondritic, monomineralic silicates, and sulfides, and (2) man made, that were classified into aluminum (metallic or oxide) and miscellaneous materials (such as stainless steel, paint flakes, etc). On CME gold collectors on LDEF's trailing edge approximately 11 percent of all craters greater than 100 micron in diameter were due to man-made debris, the majority (8.6 percent) caused by pure aluminum, approximately 31.4 percent were due to cosmic dust, while the remaining 58 percent were indeterminate via the analytical techniques utilized in this study. The aluminum surfaces located at the A11 forward-facing site did not permit analysis of aluminum impactors, but approximately 9.4 percent of all craters were demonstratably caused by miscellaneous debris materials and approximately 39.2 percent were the result of natural particles, leaving approximately 50 percent which were indeterminate. Model considerations and calculations are presented that focus on the crater-production rates for features greater than 100 micron in diameter, and on assigning the intermediate crater population to man-made or natural particles. An enhancement factor of 6 in the crater-production rate of natural impactors for the 'forward-facing' versus the 'trailing-edge' CME collectors was found to best explain all observations (i.e., total crater number(s), as well as their computational characteristics). Enhancement factors of 10 and 4 are either too high or too low. It is also suggested that approximately 45 percent of all craters greater than 100 micron in diameter are caused by man-made impactors on the A11 surfaces. This makes the production rate for craters greater than 100 micron in diameter, resulting from orbital debris, a factor of 40 higher on the forward-facing sides as opposed to the trailing-edge direction.
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Citations
Orbital debris as detected on exposed spacecraft
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the more predominant impact damage caused by orbital debris on the spacecraft hardware analyzed at the Johnson Space Center over the last decade, and present an analysis of these surfaces.
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Optical Analysis of Impact Features in Aerogel From the Orbital Debris Collection Experiment on the MIR Station
Friedrich Hoerz,Glen Cress,Michael E. Zolensky,Thomas H. See,Ronald P. Bernhard,J. Warren +5 more
- 01 Aug 1999
TL;DR: The Mir Environmental Effects Package (MEEP) was deployed on the Mir station and retrieved after 18 months in space as discussed by the authors, where the payload included the orbital debris collector (ODC), designed and built at the Johnson Space Center to capture and return analyzable residues of the man-made and natural particulate environment in low-Earth orbit for a detailed assessment of its compositional makeup and potential origins.
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Metallic and Oxidized Aluminum Debris Impacting the Trailing Edge of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF)
TL;DR: Kessler et al. as discussed by the authors employed a windowless X-ray detector to discriminate between oxidized (Al2O3) and metallic (Al) projectiles from dramatically different sources, the former produced during solid fuel rocket firings, the latter resulting from explosively or collisionally disrupted spacecraft.
17
An Assessment of the Role of Solid Rocket Motors in the Generation of Orbital Debris
Mark Mulrooney
- 01 Aug 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a resolution to the uncertainties surrounding SRM particulate generation, sufficiently so to enable a first-order incorporation of SRMs as a source term in space debris environment definition.
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•Posted Content
NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) 3 and its ability to replicate spacecraft impact rates
TL;DR: In this article, an updated version of the Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) is presented, which better captures the correlation between directionality and velocity and incorporates a bulk density distribution, and compares its predictions with the rate of large particle impacts seen on the LDEF and the Pegasus II and III satellites.
11
References
Cosmic Dust: Collection and Research
TL;DR: Cosmic dust as discussed by the authors is defined as "particle material that exists or has existed in the interplanetary medium as bodies smaller than 1 mm and can be collected both in space and in the terrestrial environment, and they are a valuable resource of meteoritic material.
488
Large craters on the meteoroid and space debris impact experiment
Donald H. Humes
- 01 Jun 1991
TL;DR: In this paper, a model of the near-Earth meteoroid environment is presented which uses a meteoroid size distribution based on the crater size distribution on the space end of the LDEF.
Dimensional scaling for impact cratering and perforation
Alan J. Watts,Dale R. Atkinson +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the issue of generic scaling laws able to adequately predict (within better than 20%) cratering in semi-infinite targets and perforations through finite thickness targets was revisited.
47
Origin of orbital debris impacts on LDEF's trailing surfaces
Donald J. Kessler
- 01 Apr 1993
TL;DR: In this paper, a model was developed to determine the origin of orbital impacts measured on the training surfaces of LDEF. The model calculates the expected debris impact crater distribution around LDEF as a function of debris orbital parameters.