Computational methodology to predict satellite system-level effects from impacts of untrackable space debris

Welty, Nathan; Rudolph, Martin; Schäfer, F.; Apeldoorn, Jeffrey; Janovsky, R.

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2013.01.021

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…where ϕ i is the flux associated to the i -th vector flux element, S ij is the projected area of the j -th face on the direction of the i -th vector flux element, and ∆T is the mission time in years. For the computation of the penetration probability, the classic approach involving BLEs can be adopted (Kuiper et al, 2010;Reimerdes and Wohlers, 2001;Welty et al, 2013;Stokes et al, 2000;Grassi et al, 2014;Bunte et al, 2009;Stokes et al, 2012). Substituting into the relevant BLE the velocity and direction of the vector flux elements, the critical diameters are computed.…”

Section: Impact and Penetration Probability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Predicting the vulnerability of spacecraft components: Modelling debris impact effects through vulnerable-zones

Trisolini

Lewis

Colombo

2020

Advances in Space Research

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The space environment around the Earth is populated by more than 130 million objects of 1 mm in size and larger, and future predictions shows that this amount is destined to increase, even if mitigation measures are implemented at a far better rate than today. These objects can hit and damage a spacecraft or its components. It is thus necessary to assess the risk level for a satellite during its mission lifetime. Few software packages perform this analysis, and most of them employ time-consuming ray-tracing methodology, where particles are randomly sampled from relevant distributions. In addition, they tend not to consider the risk associated with the secondary debris clouds. The paper presents the development of a vulnerability assessment model, which relies on a fully statistical procedure: the debris fluxes are directly used combining them with the concept of vulnerable zone, avoiding the random sampling the debris fluxes. A novel methodology is presented to predict damage on internal components. It models the interaction between the components and the secondary debris cloud through basic geometrical operations, considering mutual shielding and shadowing between internal components. The methodologies are tested against state-of-the-art software for relevant test cases, comparing results on external structures and internal components.

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Section: Impact and Penetration Probability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each panel is then assigned the properties and characteristics required for the impact analysis, such as the material, the shielding configuration, the thickness, etc. (Grassi et al, 2014;Gäde and Miller, 2013;Stokes et al, 2000;Welty et al, 2013). An environmental model (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting the vulnerability of spacecraft components: Modelling debris impact effects through vulnerable-zones

Trisolini

Lewis

Colombo

2020

Advances in Space Research

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“…Then we can compute the probability of such impact. Assuming that debris impact events are probabilistic independent [33], it is possible to use a Poisson statistics to compute the impact probability.…”

Section: Page 13 Of 36mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using Eqs. (33) and (34) It is possible to compute the number of orbits after which the equator crossing displacement reaches the prescribed limit as follows:…”

Section: Delta-v Budgetmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spacecraft design optimisation for demise and survivability

Trisolini

Lewis

Colombo

2018

Aerospace Science and Technology

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Among the mitigation measures introduced to cope with the space debris issue there is the de-orbiting of decommissioned satellites. Guidelines for re-entering objects call for a ground casualty risk no higher than 10 -4 . To comply with this requirement, satellites can be designed through a design-for-demise philosophy. Still, a spacecraft designed to demise through the atmosphere has to survive the debris-populated space environment for many years. The demisability and the survivability of a satellite can both be influenced by a set of common design choices such as the material selection, the geometry definition, and the position of the components inside the spacecraft. Within this context, two models have been developed to analyse the demise and the survivability of satellites. Given the competing nature of the demisability and the survivability requirements, a multi-objective optimisation framework was developed, with the aim to identify trade-off solutions for the preliminary design of satellites. As the problem is nonlinear and involves the combination of continuous and discrete variables, classical derivative based approaches are unsuited and a genetic algorithm was selected instead. The genetic algorithm uses the developed demisability and survivability criteria as the fitness functions of the multi-objective algorithm. The paper presents a test case, which considers the preliminary optimisation of tanks in terms of material, geometry, location, and number of tanks for a representative Earth observation mission. The configuration of the external structure of the spacecraft is fixed. Tanks were selected because they are sensitive to both design requirements: they represent critical components in the demise process and impact damage can cause the loss of the mission because of leaking and ruptures. The results present the possible trade off solutions, constituting the Pareto front obtained from the multi-objective optimisation. IntroductionIn the past two decades, the attention towards a more sustainable use of outer space has increased steadily. The major space-faring nations and international committees have proposed a series of debris mitigation measures [1, 2] to protect the space environment. Among these mitigation measures, the de-orbiting of spacecraft at the end of their operational life is recommended in order to reduce the risk of collisions in orbit.However, re-entering spacecraft can pose a risk to people and property on the ground. Consequently, the re-entry of disposed spacecraft needs to be analysed and its compliancy with international regulations has to be assessed. In particular, the casualty risk for people on the ground related to the re-entry of a spacecraft needs to be below the limit of 10 -4 if an uncontrolled re-entry strategy is to be adopted [3,4]. A possible strategy to limit the ground casualty risk is to use a design-for-demise philosophy, where most (if not all) of the spacecraft will not survive the re-entry process. The implementation of design for demise strategies [5-7] may...

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“…Currently, there are two approaches for ranking the vulnerable components. The first is to determine the relative vulnerability based on the single-hit vulnerable area (SHVA) or kill probability of each component [1,7,8]. This method can only be applied for an aircraft consisting of nonredundant components that are designed to perform the mission functions individually.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ranking the Vulnerable Components of Aircraft by Considering Performance Degradations

Pei

Wang

2016

Journal of Aircraft

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One of the most important tasks of aircraft vulnerability assessment is to rank vulnerable components so that proper actions can be applied to the weaker components to improve survivability. Currently, when comparing the contributions of components to the overall aircraft vulnerability in a military context, existing methods focused on the aircraft kill state without considering the intermediate states that are related to performance degradations. This work aims to investigate how performance-related importance measures in the field of reliability can be modified to rank the vulnerable components. Component vulnerability importance measures considering performance degradations are proposed. Two applications, one with eight critical components and one consisting of 84 noncritical components and 28 critical components dealing with aircraft being hit by metallic fragments detonated from a missile, are provided. The analysis shows that the proposed method is useful for engineers to determine which components are more likely to cause aircraft performance degradations in the combat environment from the standpoint of vulnerability.

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Computational methodology to predict satellite system-level effects from impacts of untrackable space debris

Cited by 18 publications

References 12 publications

Predicting the vulnerability of spacecraft components: Modelling debris impact effects through vulnerable-zones

Predicting the vulnerability of spacecraft components: Modelling debris impact effects through vulnerable-zones

Spacecraft design optimisation for demise and survivability

Ranking the Vulnerable Components of Aircraft by Considering Performance Degradations

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