Abstract:
This paper presents achievements of M/OD hypervelocity impact tests conducted in Beijing Institute of Spacecraft Environment Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology. (1) A new and more perfect projectile/sabot aerodynamic separating technique is developed in hypervelocity impact experiment. (2) The ballistic limit curve (BLC) of spacecraft window glass is obtained, with. the hypervelocity impact limit thickness and the critical penetration diameter of fused silica glass being 12mm and 2.5mm, respectively and according to our studies, the fused silica glass of 12 mm in thickness is safe for a 400 km altitude orbit space station in 3 years of its life time. (3) The BLC of the typical aluminum alloy Whipple shield is obtained, which agrees approximately with the generally used Christiansen’s ballistic limit equation. (4) Two kinds of new launch structures, taper-configuration and corner- configuration, are designed, with hypervelocity flyers of better integrity and planarity used in hypervelocity launching by pillow flyer technique, and numerical simulations show that the velocity of the flyer with diameter of 6mm and thickness of 2mm can reach 16km/s. (5) A new concept protection shield is designed based on the shock wave theory, and the numerical simulation shows that this new kind of shield has better protection ability than the previous ones. In a near future, China will need to protect spacecraft against the space debris, so the hypervelocity impact test is important.