Examination of 29.37 sq m of thick aluminum plates from the LDEF, which were exposed to the meteoroid and man-made orbital debris environments for 5.8 years, revealed 606 craters that were 0.5 mm in diameter or larger. Most were nearly hemispherical. There was a large variation in the number density of craters around the three axis gravity gradient stabilized spacecraft. A new model of the near-Earth meteoroid environment gives good agreement with the crater fluxes measured on the fourteen faces of the LDEF. The man-made orbital debris model of Kessler, which predicts that 16 pct. of the craters would be caused by man-made debris, is plausible. No chemical analyses of impactor residue that will distinguish between meteoroids and man-made debris is yet available.
Large craters on the meteoroid and space debris impact experiment
1992-01-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
Small Craters on the Meteoroid and Space Debris Impact Experiment
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