Status of development of space-debris hypervelocity explosive multi-stage launcher
✍ Scribed by A. Geille
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 801 KB
- Volume
- 20
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0734-743X
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✦ Synopsis
CEA/CESTA is now adapting under contxact with European Space Agency (ESA) an explosive-based technique to launch hypervelocity projectiles in order to simulate the space debris environment in low orbit around the earth. ESA requirement is to launch a representative fiat aluminum projectile (1 gram) up to a velocity of 11 km/s conserving its aspect ratio and integrity, separating it from any other flying object, and recovering the target for further analysis.Some papers have already been published concerning the principles [1], experimental aspects [2,4] and processes to optimize the launchers and get the maximum benefit of the applied energy densification technique [3 through 5]. This paper describes significant improvements concerning complete 1D, 2D numerical simulations, experimental diagnostics applied to the ESA developed launcher, and some examples of test results.