Flexible hypervelocity impact shielding system for expandable space structures

Abstract

The space race among various countries since the 1960s have led to the presence of around a few millions of micro-meteoroid and orbital debris (M/OD) in earth orbit. Eventually, the number of M/OD has also increased gradually. At present, there are millions of M/OD that can be a potential threat to space structures, which travel at hypervelocity speeds from a few to tens of km/s depending on the earth orbit of the M/OD. For International Space Station (ISS) a dual wall concept, which is called Whipple shield, has been applied to protect astronauts against M/OD impact. Over the years, various high performance materials have been utilized in improving this Whipple shield design. As a consequence of the space race led by private economy lately, effort to increase the academic and commercial value of space has solicited the design and development of bigger space structures than existing ones. Nevertheless, the size of all the space structure is limited by the diameter size, 5 m of launch vehicles. Expandable space structure is a new and economical method to counteract this physical limitation of space structures. However, the existing expandable space structure concept which has flexible fabric layers has inferior characteristics to Whipple shield in the manner of hypervelocity protection. To improve the hypervelocity protection of flexible and expandable space structures, new approach and research are required. In this research, a hypervelocity facility was designed and established. New conceptual designs such as space direct curable composite, flexible and high performance fabric with shear thickening fluid matrix and dragon skin were used for developing and validating the hypervelocity impact protection system for expandable structures.