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Simulation of Micron-Sized Debris Populations in Low Earth Orbit

Journal article published in 2010 by Yu-Lin Xu, Mark Matney, J. C. Liou, James Hyde, Thomas G. Prior
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Preprint: policy unknown
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Postprint: policy unknown
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Abstract

The update of ORDEM2000, the NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model, to its new version -ORDEM2010, is nearly complete. As a part of the ORDEM upgrade, this paper addresses the simulation of micro-debris (greater than 10 µm and smaller than 1 mm in size) populations in low Earth orbit. The principal data used in the modeling of the micron-sized debris popu-lations are in-situ hypervelocity impact records, accumulated in post-flight damage surveys on the space-exposed surfaces of returned spacecrafts. The development of the micro-debris model populations follows the general approach to deriving other ORDEM2010-required input popu-lations for various components and types of debris. This paper describes the key elements and major steps in the statistical inference of the ORDEM2010 micro-debris populations. A crucial step is the construction of a degradation/ejecta source model to provide prior information on the micron-sized objects (such as orbital and object-size distributions). Another critical step is to link model populations with data, which is rather involved. It demands detailed information on area-time/directionality for all the space-exposed elements of a shuttle orbiter and damage laws, which relate impact damage with the physical properties of a projectile and impact con-ditions such as impact angle and velocity. Also needed are model-predicted debris fluxes as a function of object size and impact velocity from all possible directions. In spite of the very limited quantity of the available shuttle impact data, the population-derivation process is satis-factorily stable. Final modeling results obtained from shuttle window and radiator impact data are reasonably convergent and consistent, especially for the debris populations with object-size thresholds at 10 and 100 µm.