Speaker
Description
Small space debris objects and micrometeoroid particulates (collectively called microparticles) pose a significant threat to the safe operations of satellites and other space systems in Earth orbit. Depending on particle’s size, speed, and impact angle, hypervelocity particle impacts can degrade surfaces, puncture outer walls, damage internal components, and in the worst case lead to the partial or complete destruction of the spacecraft.
Since they cannot be detected/tracked by ground-based radar or optical instruments, the impact fluxes of particles smaller than a few centimeters in LEO or a few decimeters in GEO are not well known. As a consequence, microparticle environment models (e.g. MASTER, ORDEM) have large flux uncertainties (up to a factor of 3, and in certain sizes ranges larger still).
Therefore, it is of paramount importance to have reliable data from in-situ microparticle detectors to validate and improve MMOD environment models. Furthermore, long-term measurements provide valuable information on the temporal evolution of the small-sized space debris population.
Several European in-situ microparticle detectors have flown or are still gathering data in LEO and GEO. The Geostationary Orbit Impact Detector (GORID) has been detecting impacts onboard the Russian Ekspress-2 geostationary satellite from 1996 till 2001. DEBIE-2 (Debris In-orbit Evaluator) provided data from the ISS/Columbus module for about one year. Finally, DEBIE-1 onboard the Proba-1 satellite is still going strong despite almost 20 years of operation in a Sun-synchronous LEO orbit.
In this talk we will present a summary of the data collected so far and some key findings based on preliminary processing/analysis. The recent update to the European Debris Impact Database (EDID) for storing, processing, disseminating data from debris and meteoroid impact detectors will be presented.
Given the importance of having continuous measurements of reliable microparticle fluxes in congested orbital regimes, we invite ESA to renew efforts to process and analyse existing events as found in the EDID database, use the impact data to validate/improve microparticle environment models (e.g. MASTER), plan for new R&D activities on microparticle detectors, and identify suitable flight opportunities. Furthermore, we would like to encourage the microparticle detector community to add their data to the EDID database, e.g. TechnoSat/SOLID data.
