Computation of Artificial Meteors Trajectory and Ablation

Abstract

This work has been motivated by the lack of meteor data, which hinders the determination of the mass and composition of natural meteors. To advance the knowledge of meteors science, the Japanese start-up ALE Co. Ltd. (standing for Astro Live Experiences) designed hundreds of 1-cm diameter particles composed of materials representative of natural meteors, which will be release at an altitude of 300 km by an original payload in 2023. During entry, the light emitted by the particles will be analyzed by spectrometers and cameras on the ground to characterize the thermal and optical properties of the materials. This paper carries out a sensitivity analysis and aims to discuss the modeling parameters predicting full disintegration of the particles before touching ground. This paper presents the efforts undertaken to compute the trajectory of artificial meteors during their entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Various materials representative of natural meteors and their thermal response were modeled. The trajectory of artificial meteors was computed by solving the equation of motion including mass conservation. The influence of the drag coefficient, heat transfer coefficient, and geometric parameters was evaluated through the statistical analysis of Grid Sampling and Monte Carlo simulations. They were shown to have a sizeable effect on the trajectory, mass loss, latitude and altitude of demise. The computations demonstrate full demisability of the artificial meteor above 60 km, which is compliant with international safety regulations.