Natural and orbital debris particles on LDEF`s trailing and forward-facing surfaces
- Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co., Houston, TX (United States)
Approximately 1000 impact craters on the Chemistry of Meteoroid Experiment (CME) have been analyzed by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDXA) to determine the compositional make-up of projectile residues. This report completes the authors systematic survey of gold and aluminum surfaces exposed at the trailing-edge (A03) and forward-facing (A11) LDEF sites, respectively. The major categories for the projectile residues were (1) natural, with diverse subgroups such as chondritic, monomineralic silicates, and sulfides, and (2) man made, that were classified into aluminum (metallic or oxide) and miscellaneous materials (such as stainless steel, paint flakes, etc). On CME gold collectors on LDEF`s trailing edge approximately 11 percent of all craters greater than 100 micron in diameter were due to man-made debris, the majority (8.6 percent) caused by pure aluminum, approximately 31.4 percent were due to cosmic dust, while the remaining 58 percent were indeterminate via the analytical techniques utilized in this study. The aluminum surfaces located at the A11 forward-facing site did not permit analysis of aluminum impactors, but approximately 9.4 percent of all craters were demonstratably caused by miscellaneous debris materials and approximately 39.2 percent were the result of natural particles, leaving approximately 50 percent which were indeterminate. Model considerations and calculations are presented that focus on the crater-production rates for features greater than 100 micron in diameter, and on assigning the intermediate crater population to man-made or natural particles. An enhancement factor of 6 in the crater-production rate of natural impactors for the `forward-facing` versus the `trailing-edge` CME collectors was found to best explain all observations (i.e., total crater number(s), as well as their computational characteristics). Enhancement factors of 10 and 4 are either too high or too low.
- Research Organization:
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Hampton, VA (United States). Langley Research Center
- OSTI ID:
- 42756
- Report Number(s):
- N--95-23796; NASA-CP--3275-PT-1; L--17430A-PT-1; NAS--1.55:3275-PT-1; CONF-9311137--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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