Estimation of Impact Force and its Location Exerted on a Spacecraft.

Abstract

Space debris collision is one of the most serious problems for space systems operations and, particularly, a warning system is necessary to determine whether repairs will be needed to carry out the mission. For this purpose, this paper presents a procedure based on an inverse analysis to estimate the impact force and its location exerted on a spacecraft by using the arrival time differences between acceleration waveforms measured at more than three places on a structure. Simulation results are shown based on the analytical solutions of the structure vibration model with acceleration data corrupted by white noise.