Experiments on rebounding slow impacts under asteroid conditions

Abstract

We present a newly developed experiment for the examination of low-speed impacts under asteroid conditions. More specifically, our experimental setup enables us to simulate a very clean milligravity environment under vacuum, in which projectiles are shot at a granular bed at several cm/s. This granular bed consists of irregularly formed basalt particles with different size distributions. The experiment is carried out in the Bremen drop tower in its catapult mode, granting more than 9 s microgravity. Here, we discuss the setup and assess its performance.