The risk to any crewed vehicle arising from potential re-contact with fragments from an explosive breakup of any jettisoned spacecraft segments during entry has long sought to be quantified. However, great difficulty lies in efficiently capturing the potential locations of each fragment and their individual threat to the vehicle. The method presented in this paper addresses this problem by using a stochastic approach that discretizes simulated debris pieces into volumetric cells in a moving reference frame, and then assesses strike probabilities accordingly. Combining spatial debris density and relative velocity between the debris and the target vehicle, the strike probability can be calculated from the integral of the debris flux inside each cell over time. Using this technique it is possible to assess the risk to an entry vehicle along an entire trajectory as it separates from the jettisoned segment. By decoupling the fragment trajectories from that of the target vehicle, multiple potential separation maneuvers can then be evaluated rapidly to provide an assessment of the best strategy to mitigate the re-contact risk. This is therefore a powerful tool to aid analysis in optimizing separation maneuvers for jettisoning large spacecraft bodies. However, careful care must be given to the selection of the mesh used to discretize the spatial region, as non-negligible errors may arise from inappropriate choice of both mesh type and cell dimensions.


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    Title :

    Mesh-Based Entry Vehicle and Explosive Debris Re-Contact Probability Modeling


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    2011


    Size :

    9 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Mesh-Based Entry Vehicle and Explosive Debris Re-Contact Probability Modeling

    McPherson, M. / Mendeck, G. / American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Conferderation of European Aerospace Societies | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2011



    Mesh-Based Entry Vehicle and Explosive Debris Re-Contact Probability Modeling

    McPherson, Mark A. / Mendeck, Gavin F. | NTRS | 2011