An impact sensitivity assessment method of spacecraft based on virtual exterior wall

Abstract

The impact sensitivity assessment of spacecraft is to obtain the probability of spacecraft encountering the OD/M (orbital debris or meteoroid), which is a prerequisite for survivability assessment of on-orbit spacecraft. An impact sensitivity assessment method of spacecraft based on virtual exterior wall was proposed to improve the computational efficiency. This method eliminates determination of the outermost surface elements of the spacecraft before generating the debris rays, which are assumed to originate from a non-concave virtual wall that completely wraps the spacecraft. The DistMesh method was adopted for the generating of the virtual wall to ensure its mesh quality. The influences of the sizes, mesh densities, shapes of the virtual wall on the efficiency and accuracy were considered to obtain the best combination of the size and mesh density of the wall and spacecraft. The results of this method were compared with those of S3DE (Survivability of Spacecraft in Space Debris Environment), BUMPER, MDPANTO, ESABASE2/Debris to verify the feasibility of the method. The PCHIP (Piecewise Cubic Hermite Interpolating Polynomial) was used to fit the size vs. flux relationship of the space debris to acquire the impact probability of OD/M with arbitrary size on the spacecraft.