Characterisation of rear incident hypervelocity impact phenomena on hubble space telescope solar arrays

✍ Scribed by M.K. Herbert

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 943 KB
• Volume: 23
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0734-743X
• DOI: 10.1016/s0734-743x(99)00088-3

✦ Synopsis

Impact damage on glass faced HST solar cells generated by rear-incident impactors represent over one-third of the total damage on the retrieved solar array. Analysis of such space and laboratory generated morphologies has revealed a means of discriminating between front and rear incident impact sites and enabled characterization through either impactor energy or a simplified indentation fracture model. Morphology is seen to evolve with impactor energy and incidence. Onset of rear incident penetration occurs at one-third of the particle size necessary for front incident. Calibration of rear incident particle flux-size is possible using this approach.