The Role of Impacts and Momentum Transfer for the Evolution of Envisat’s Attitude State

The currently proposed space debris remediation measures include the active removal of large objects and “just in time” collision avoidance by deviating the objects using, e.g., ground-based lasers. Both techniques require precise knowledge of the attitude state and state changes of the target objects. In the former case, to devise methods to grapple the target by a tug spacecraft, in the latter, to precisely propagate the orbits of potential collision partners as disturbing forces like air drag and solar radiation pressure depend on the attitude of the objects. Non-resolving optical observations of the magnitude variations, so-called light curves, are a promising technique to determine rotation or tumbling rates and the orientations of the actual rotation axis of objects, as well as their temporal changes. The 1-meter telescope ZIMLAT of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern has been used to collect light curves of MEO and GEO objects for a considerable period of time. Recently, light curves of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) targets were acquired as well. We present different observation methods, including active tracking using a CCD subframe readout technique, and the use of a high-speed scientific CMOS camera. Technical challenges when tracking objects with poor orbit redictions, as well as different data reduction methods are addressed. Results from a survey of abandoned rocket upper stages in LEO, examples of abandoned payloads and observations of high area-to-mass ratio debris will be resented. Eventually, first results of the analysis of these light curves are provided.

Today, there is little knowledge on the attitude state of decommissioned intact objects in Earth orbit. Observational means have advanced in the past years, but are still limited with respect to an accurate estimate of motion vector orientations and magnitude. Especially for the preparation of Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions as planned by ESA’s Clean Space initiative or contingency scenarios for ESA spacecraft like ENVISAT, such knowledge is needed. ESA's “Debris Attitude Motion Measurements and Modelling” project (ESA Contract No. 40000112447), led by the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB), addresses this problem. The goal of the project is to achieve a good understanding of the attitude evolution and the considerable internal and external effects which occur. To characterize the attitude state of selected targets in LEO and GTO, multiple observation methods are combined. Optical observations are carried out by AIUB, Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is performed by the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IWF) and radar measurements and signal level determination are provided by the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR). The In-Orbit Tumbling Analysis tool (ιOTA) is a prototype software, currently in development by Hyperschall Technologie Gottingen GmbH (HTG) within the framework of the project. ιOTA will be a highly modular software tool to perform short-(days), medium-(months) and long-term (years) propagation of the orbit and attitude motion (six degrees-of-freedom) of spacecraft in Earth orbit. The simulation takes into account all relevant acting forces and torques, including aerodynamic drag, solar radiation pressure, gravitational influences of Earth, Sun and Moon, eddy current damping, impulse and momentum transfer from space debris or micro meteoroid impact, as well as the optional definition of particular spacecraft specific influences like tank sloshing, reaction wheel behaviour, magnetic torquer activity and thruster firing. The purpose of ιOTA is to provide high accuracy short-term simulations to support observers and potential ADR missions, as well as medium-and long-term simulations to study the significance of the particular internal and external influences on the attitude, especially damping factors and momentum transfer. The simulation will also enable the investigation of the altitude dependency of the particular external influences. ιOTA's post-processing modules will generate synthetic measurements for observers and for software validation. The validation of the software will be done by cross-calibration with observations and measurements acquired by the project partners.

The currently proposed space debris remediation measures include the active removal of large objects and “just in time” collision avoidance by deviating the objects using, e.g., ground-based lasers. These techniques require precise knowledge of the attitude state and state changes of the target objects. In the former case, e.g. to devise methods to capture the target with a tug spacecraft, in the latter, to precisely propagate the orbits of potential collision partners, as disturbing forces like air drag and solar radiation pressure depend on the attitude of the objects. A reliable and prompt determination of the attitude and attitude motion of an inactive spacecraft is also required in contingency situations. The paper will describe new techniques to determine space debris attitude states and to model their temporal evolution by combining heterogeneous observations from different ground-based observation techniques including synthetic aperture radar measurements, optical light curve observations, and cooperative laser ranging measurements. Results for a set of decommissioned or lost LEO, MEO and HEO spacecraft and upper stages will be presented.

Micrometeoroid/Orbital Debris (MMOD) Impact Detection and Location Using Fiber Optic Bragg Grating Sensing Technology

To date, the International Space Station (ISS) has been one of the largest objects flown in lower earth orbit (LEO). The ISS utilizes high voltage solar arrays (160V) that are negatively grounded leading to pressurized elements that can float negatively with respect to the plasma. Because laboratory measurements indicate a dielectric breakdown potential difference of 80V, arcing could occur on the ISS structure. The paper identifies anodized aluminum surfaces, chromic acid and sulfuric acid anodized, on the ISS, which could arc due to plasma charging. An assessment of the effects of plasma-induced arcing on these ISS anodized surfaces, with and without concurrent micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MM/OD) impacts has been completed. The purpose of this study was to assess the loss of thermal control capability of the anodized surfaces on ISS if the Plasma Contactor Units (PCUs) were not continually operated as ISS is constructed and operated. The study considers six cases for the arcing Chromic Acid Anodized Aluminum (CAA) surfaces or Sulfuric Acid Anodized Aluminum (SAA) with no Micrometeoroid/Orbital Debris impacts (MM/OD), with MM/OD impacts that completely penetrated the anodize layer, and with MM/OD impacts that partially penetrated the anodize layer. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) performed analyses to provide the data giving the size and depth of penetration of MM/OD impacts. All six cases documented the thermal control properties of the anodized layers throughout the ISS life without PCU operations.

The paper addresses some on-orbit nondestructive evaluation (NDE) needs of NASA for International Space Station (ISS). The presentation gives NDE requirements for inspecting suspect damage due to micro-meteoroids and orbital debris (MMOD) impact on the pressure wall of the ISS. This inspection is meant to be conducted from inside of the ISS module. The metallic wall of the module has a fixed wall thickness but also has integral orthogrid ribs for reinforcement. Typically, a single MMOD hit causes localized damage in a small area causing loss of material similar to pitting corrosion, but cracks may be present too. The impact may cause bulging of the wall. Results of the ultrasonic and eddy current demonstration scans on test samples are provided. The ultrasonic technique uses shear wave scans to interrogate the localized damage area from the surrounding undamaged area. The scanning protocol results in multiple scans, each with multiple "vee" paths. A superimposition and mosaic of the three-dimensional ultrasonic data from individual scans is desired to create C-scan images of the damage. This is a new data reduction process which is not currently implemented in state-of-art ultrasonic instruments. Results of ultrasonic scans on the simulated MMOD damage test plates are provided. The individual C-scans are superimposed manually creating mosaic of the inspection. The resulting image is compared with visibly detected damage boundaries, X-ray images, and localized ultrasonic and eddy current scans for locating crack tips to assess effectiveness of the ultrasonic scanning. The paper also discusses developments needed in improving ergonomics of the ultrasonic testing for on-orbit applications.

The current paper is an excerpt from the doctoral thesis ”Multi-Layer Insulation as Contribution to Orbital Debris”written at the Institute of Aerospace Systems of the Technische Universit at of Braunschweig. The Multi-Layer In-sulation (MLI) population included in ESA’s MASTER-2009 (M eteoroid and Space-Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference) software is based on models for two mechanisms: One model simulates the release of MLI debris during fragmentation events while another estimates the continuo us release of larger MLI pieces due to aging related deterioration of the material. The aim of the thesis was to revise the MLI models from the base up followed by a re-validation of the simulated MLI debris population. The validation is based on comparison to measurement data of the GEO and GTO debris environment obtained by the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB) using ESA’s Space Debris Telescope (ESASDT), the 1-m Zeiss telescope located at the Optical Ground Station (OGS) at the Teide Observatory at Tenerife, Spain. The re-validation led to the conclusion that MLI may cover a much smaller portion of the observed objects than previously published. Further investigation of the resulting discrepancy revealed that the contribution of altogether nine known Ariane H-10 upper stage explosion events which occurred between 1984 and 2002 has very likely been underestimated in past simulations.

To improve the near-Earth meteoroid and orbital debris environment definition, a large area particle sensor/collector is being developed to be placed on the International Space Station (ISS). This instrument, the Large Area Debris Collector (LAD-C), will attempt to record meteoroid and orbital debris impact flux, and capture the same particles with aerogel. After at least one year of deployment, the whole system will be brought back for additional laboratory analysis of the captured meteoroids and orbital debris. This project is led by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) while the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Space Test Program (STP) is responsible for the integration, deployment, and retrieval of the system. Additional contributing team members of the consortium include the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Chiba University (Japan), ESA Space Debris Office, University of Kent (UK), and University of California at Berkeley. The deployment of LAD-C on the ISS is planned for 2008, with the system retrieval in late 2009.

Impact of meteoroids and orbital debris on Hermes design

In this study, the performance requirements influencing the orbital and attitude control system of a geostationary satellite in the station-keeping flight mode considering the coupling effect of both attitude and orbital motion is determined. Controlling and keeping the satellite in its orbital window have been done using a set of four thrusters located on one side of the satellite body, with considering the coupling effect of the attitude motion on orbital motion. The satellite’s orbital motion could be disturbed by the attitude motion in the allowable orbital window. The main factors conducting this behavior are derived utilizing the satellite attitude and orbital dynamic equations of motion. In the mathematical analysis of this study, the effects of environmental perturbations originating from the oblateness of Earth, third mass gravity like sun and moon, and solar radiation pressure on the satellite dynamic behavior are also considered. Afterward, the condition of using four installed thrusters on one side of the satellite and the reaction wheels in order to control the satellite orbital and attitude motion is investigated. To reduce the satellite attitude’s error, a proportional-derivative controller is employed to activate the reaction wheels properly. The satellite positions in north-south and east-west directions are controlled by a specific array of thrusters in order to maintain in its predefined orbital window. The required amount of velocity variations for a duration of one year via some simulation may demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in enhancing the orbital maintenance procedure of the satellite.

For nearly fifty-nine years, State Governments and private actors have objects in orbit around Earth and other celestial bodies. The leftovers of dilapidated satellites, rockets, non functioning satellites and the junks ensuing from their collisions and explosions form a considerable portion of the debris in space. These non-functioning objects in actual fact threaten the space environment by their mere presence. Space junks on orbit around the earth poses the most severe modern risk to the use of space. For the long term sustainability and the continuous usages of the Outer space by State Governments and private actors, mitigation of debris in Outer Space is very essential. There are so many Guidelines that have been suggested to help in mitigating debris in space by major space faring countries, policy makers , United Nations and some space agencies to mention a few. These Guidelines and Code of Conducts are regarded as soft laws and they are expected to regulate the activities of humankind in the uses of Outer space. This paper will crucially analyse the various guidelines proposed for space debris mitigation. This paper is not an attempt to discuss every facet of the mitigation guidelines. It will rather look at the overview of the soft laws, its roles and some of the limitations of soft laws and projects the way forward.

The International Space Station (ISS) will be the largest, highest power spacecraft placed in orbit. Because of this the design of the electrical power system diverged markedly from previous systems. The solar arrays will operate at 160 V and the power distribution voltage will be 120 V. The structure is grounded to the negative side of the solar arrays so under the right circumstances it is possible to drive the ISS potential very negative. A plasma contactor has been added to the ISS to provide control of the ISS structure potential relative to the ambient plasma. The ISS requirement is that the ISS structure not be greater than 40 V positive or negative of local plasma. What are the ramifications of operating large structures with such high voltage power systems? The application of a plasma contactor on ISS controls the potential between the structure and the local plasma, preventing degrading effects. It is conceivable that there can be situations where the plasma contactor might be non-functional. This might be due to lack of power, the need to turn it off during some of the build-up sequences, the loss of functionality for both plasma contactors before a replacement can be installed, similar circumstances. A study was undertaken to understand how important it is to have the contactor functioning and how long it might be off before unacceptable degradation to ISS could occur. The details of interaction effects on spacecraft have not been addressed until driven by design. This was true for ISS. If the structure is allowed to float highly negative impinging ions can sputter exposed conductors which can degrade the primary surface and also generate contamination due to the sputtered material. Arcing has been known to occur on solar arrays that float negative of the ambient plasma. This can also generate electromagnetic interference and voltage transients. Much of the ISS structure and pressure module surfaces exposed to space is anodized aluminum. The anodization thickness is very thin to provide the required solar absorptance and emittance. For conditions where ISS structure can charge negative a large percentage of the array voltage, the dielectric strength of this layer is low, and dielectric breakdown (arcing) can occur. The energy stored capacitively in the structure can be delivered to the arc. The mechanisms by which this energy is delivered and how much of the energy is available hasn't been fully quantified. Questions have been raised regarding the possibility of whether a sustained arc might result due to current collected by the solar arrays from local plasma. It was postulated that even if dielectric breakdown didn't occur, impacts due to micrometeoroids and space debris could penetrate thin layers of dielectric on ISS and initiate an arc due to the coupling provided by the dense local plasma produced by the impact. This was proven in experiments conducted jointly by MSFC and Auburn University. A target chamber with a simulated ionospheric plasma and a biased, anodized aluminum plate and a 1-microfarad capacitor was used. The plate was then impacted by 75-micron particles accelerated to orbital velocity. Arc discharges were sustained for higher voltages but a threshold appears below which no discharge was initiated. Most items without an exposed power system will float electrically near the local plasma potential. This is true of the Space Shuttle, an Astronaut on EVA, and similar items. The structure of ISS might be at a large negative voltage. Therefore, capacitively stored energy can be transferred during docking, installing external boxes and equipment and Astronaut contact with ISS structure. The circumstances of when this can happen and the resulting effects are evaluated in this study. Also, a crewmember on EVA might be in the vicinity of an arc. All safety aspects of such an encounter including charging, molten particles from the arc site and EMI have been evaluated. This paper will report on the total results of this study focussed on the 4A configuration, scheduled to be complete in November, 2000. Interactions such as arcing, debris induced arcs, sustained arcs, sputtering, contamination from sputtering and arcing, docking interactions and Astronaut safety issues will all be addressed.

Hypervelocity impact of meteoroids and orbital debris poses a serious and growing threat to spacecraft. To study hypervelocity impact phenomena, a comprehensive ensemble of real-time concurrently operated diagnostics has been developed and implemented in the Small Particle Hypervelocity Impact Range (SPHIR) facility. This suite of simultaneously operated instrumentation provides multiple complementary measurements that facilitate the characterization of many impact phenomena in a single experiment. The investigation of hypervelocity impact phenomena described in this work focuses on normal impacts of 1.8 mm nylon 6/6 cylinder projectiles and variable thickness aluminum targets. The SPHIR facility two-stage light-gas gun is capable of routinely launching 5.5 mg nylon impactors to speeds of 5 to 7 km/s. Refinement of legacy SPHIR operation procedures and the investigation of first-stage pressure have improved the velocity performance of the facility, resulting in an increase in average impact velocity of at least 0.57 km/s. Results for the perforation area indicate the considered range of target thicknesses represent multiple regimes describing the non-monotonic scaling of target perforation with decreasing target thickness. The laser side-lighting (LSL) system has been developed to provide ultra-high-speed shadowgraph images of the impact event. This novel optical technique is demonstrated to characterize the propagation velocity and two-dimensional optical density of impact-generated debris clouds. Additionally, a debris capture system is located behind the target during every experiment to provide complementary information regarding the trajectory distribution and penetration depth of individual debris particles. The utilization of a coherent, collimated illumination source in the LSL system facilitates the simultaneous measurement of impact phenomena with near-IR and UV-vis spectrograph systems. Comparison of LSL images to concurrent IR results indicates two distinctly different phenomena. A high-speed, pressure-dependent IR-emitting cloud is observed in experiments to expand at velocities much higher than the debris and ejecta phenomena observed using the LSL system. In double-plate target configurations, this phenomena is observed to interact with the rear-wall several micro-seconds before the subsequent arrival of the debris cloud. Additionally, dimensional analysis presented by Whitham for blast waves is shown to describe the pressure-dependent radial expansion of the observed IR-emitting phenomena. Although this work focuses on a single hypervelocity impact configuration, the diagnostic capabilities and techniques described can be used with a wide variety of impactors, materials, and geometries to investigate any number of engineering and scientific problems.

The International Space Station (ISS) will be at risk from orbital debris and micrometeorite impact (i.e., an impact that penetrates a critical component, possibly leading to loss of life). In support of ISS, last year the authors examined a fundamental assumption upon which the modeling of risk is based; namely, the assertion that the orbital collision problem can be modeled using a Poisson distribution. The assumption was found to be appropriate based upon the Poisson's general use as an approximation for the binomial distribution and the fact that is it proper to physically model exposure to the orbital debris flux environment using the binomial. This paper examines another fundamental issue in the expression of risk posed to space structures: the methodology by which individual incremental collision probabilities are combined to express an overall collision probability. The specific situation of ISS in this regard is that the determination of the level of safety for ISS is made via a single overall expression of critical component penetration risk. This paper details the combinatorial mathematical methods for calculating and expressing individual component (or incremental) penetration risks, utilizing component risk probabilities to produce an overall station penetration risk probability, and calculating an expected probability of loss from estimates for the loss of life given a penetration. Additionally, the paper will examine whether the statistical Poissonian answer to the orbital collision problem can be favorably compared to the results of a Monte Carlo simulation.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">The increasing concern in the space debris to spacecraft, above all long-term missions as the international space station, has increased the demand of reliable analysis tools, raised from industry and agencies.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The improvement of environment models and hypervelocity impact predictions has increased the physical available knowledge to software designers.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The DEBRIS application of ESABASE is a software simulation tool to assess the number of impacts and the resulting damage from meteoroids and space debris particles to spacecraft in low Earth orbit for user specified mission parameters and shielding designs. The tool is based on existing environment flux and damage models. For space debris this includes the new NASA engineering model ORDEM 96. For meteoroids the models includes streams, directional effects and velocity distributions. Secondary ejecta are also modelled and it is possible for the user to define his own damage equations for the analysis. The tool uses a statistical approach and allows a fully 3-dimensional analysis. The main user specified input parameters for an analysis are: The spacecraft geometry and attitude, the mission parameters, the flux models to be used for meteoroids and space debris, the particle size and velocity range to be analysed, the shielding design and the damage class and equation. The main output parameters are: The number of impacts, the impact directions and velocities, the number of damage events (holes, craters, penetrations) and the probability of no damage.</div>