SCREENING TESTS FOR ENHANCED SHIELDING AGAINST HYPERVELOCITY PARTICLE IMPACTS FOR FUTURE UNMANNED SPACECRAFT

摘要

Protection of components of unmanned spacecraftrnagainst particle impacts is typically provided by thernspacecraft’s structure together with the intrinsicrnprotection capabilities of the components themselves.rnThus to increase the survivability of future spacecraft,rnone option is to enhance the protection already providedrnusing enhanced materials and additional shielding.rnAs part of the EU funded FP7 research project ReVuSrn(“Reducing the Vulnerability of Space systems”), thernconfigurations of equipment typically found on boardrnunmanned spacecraft were identified. For each of thosernconfigurations, potential solutions have been identifiedrnwhich enhance the robustness against particle impacts.rnThe solutions are broken down into a number ofrnshielding components that include e.g. additionalrnprotective layers made from aluminum, Kevlar, Nextel,rnstainless steel mesh and ceramics. To evaluate therncharacteristics and performances of these shieldingrncomponents, a number of screening hypervelocityrnimpact tests were performed. During these tests,rnrepresentative configurations have been subjected tornimpacts of aluminum spheres of 3 mm and 5 mmrndiameter at a nominal impact velocity of 7 km/s.rnThis paper describes the targets and presents andrncompares the results.