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Metallic and Oxidized Aluminum Debris Impacting the Trailing Edge of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF)

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Space Debris

Abstract

A total of 87 microcraters >30 μm in diameter that were found in gold substrates exposed on the trailing edge of the non-spinning Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) yielded analyzable projectile residues in their interiors. Using qualitative SEM-EDS analysis methods, some 60 of these craters were formed by natural cosmic-dust particles, while 27 residues (31%) were assigned to orbital debris (Hörz et al., 1993). The far majority of the orbital-debris impacts, 24 (89%) of the 27 events, contained only aluminum in their X-ray spectra. The present study evaluates these aluminum-rich residues in detail and employs a windowless X-ray detector, which permits for the analysis of low-Z elements and specifically of oxygen. This makes it possible to discriminate between oxidized (Al2O3) and metallic (Al) projectiles from dramatically different sources, the former produced during solid-fuel rocket firings, the latter resulting from explosively or collisionally disrupted spacecraft.

Of the 24 craters analyzed with the windowless detector, 13 (54%) contained Al2O3 and 11 (46%) yielded structurally disintegrated Al metal. The oxidized residues preferentially occur in the smaller craters, all <60 μm in diameter. Corresponding particles on LDEF's trailing edge are <35 μm in diameter. Some 70% of this particle population is composed of Al2O3. Although solid-fuel rocket exhaust products are typically <5 μm in size, they tend to coagulate into crusts at the rocket nozzle to be shed occasionally as relatively large, aggregate particles. Structurally disintegrated, metallic fragments compose one-third of all particles <35 μm, but they dominate all particles >35 μm, and thus all craters >60 μm. These findings clearly establish that solid-rocket exhaust particles, as well as explosively or collisionally produced debris, exist in low-inclination, high-eccentricity orbits in sufficient quantities that they must be accounted for in models describing the present and future orbital-debris population at typical Shuttle and Space Station altitudes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, 77058, USA

    F. Hörz

  2. Lockheed-Martin Engineering and Sciences, C23, 2400 NASA Road 1, Houston, Texas, 77058, USA

    R.P. Bernhard & T.H. See

  3. 25 Gardenwood Lane, Asheville, NC, 28803, USA

    D.J. Kessler

Authors
  1. F. Hörz
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  2. R.P. Bernhard
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  3. T.H. See
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  4. D.J. Kessler
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Correspondence to F. Hörz.

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Hörz, F., Bernhard, R., See, T. et al. Metallic and Oxidized Aluminum Debris Impacting the Trailing Edge of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). Space Debris 2, 51–66 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015689229412

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