RU2771800C1 - Device for protecting spacecraft from micrometeoroids - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: space technology.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the anti-meteorite protection of a spacecraft. The device contains a multilayer screen in the form of parallel combs made of a perforated aluminum structure (2). The cone-shaped teeth of the combs have vertices (3) coated with a hard alloy, and the space between the teeth is filled with carbon-carbon material (4). The teeth are tilted in the most probable, taking into account the orbit of the spacecraft, direction of the approach of particles of space debris and micrometeoroids to it. A layer (1) of polymer material is located in front of each comb, and the adjacent combs are offset relative to each other so that in any direction of the approach of dangerous particles, their guaranteed collision with at least one of the vertices (3) is ensured.

EFFECT: increase in the reliability of spacecraft protection from micrometeoroids and small particles of space debris.

1 cl, 1 dwg

Description

The invention relates to the field of ensuring the long-term sustainability of space activities and can be used to protect a spacecraft from collisions with micrometeoroids (MM) or with a fine fraction of space debris (SM) particles (size from 1 μm to 5 mm).

An analogue protected by a patent is known: application No. 2003127170/11 B64G 1/56 dated 09/08/2003 "Use of water ice as a protective coating for space objects from mechanical damage in orbit" (Glukhikh I.N., Chelyaev V.F., Shcherbakov A. .N., etc.). As a protective coating for a spacecraft, it is proposed to use a coating of water ice (or a water-ice mixture). The technical result of the invention is to expand the arsenal of protective coatings for spacecraft that are in orbit for a long time, where fine mechanical particles (dust, small fragments of spacecraft, etc.) are present.

These devices protect the spacecraft (SC) from collisions with micrometeorites, small fragments of space debris, if they do not have too high speed and mass. In addition, when exposed to heat fluxes, this coating does not provide sufficient reliability and resistance to mechanical stress.

An analogue protected by a patent is known: patent No. 2299838, B64G 1/56 dated 08.12.2005 "Device for protecting spacecraft and stations from high-speed impact of particles of the space environment" (Kononenko M.M., Malkin A.I., Shumikhin T. BUT.).

The proposed device contains a protective screen of a cellular structure. The cellular structure of the protective screen consists of compact massive elements discretely located and fixed on a supporting base. Compact massive elements are made of dense material. The cell size of this design of the protective screen does not exceed half, and the size of a compact massive element - one quarter of the minimum characteristic size of a hazardous particle. A mesh can be used as a carrier base. In this case, compact massive elements are fixed at the grid nodes. The carrier can be a lightweight fabric or a low density nonwoven fabric. Aluminum, steel, copper, or a composite material containing tungsten or a tungsten-nickel-iron alloy can be used as a dense material for compact massive elements. The proposed device makes it possible to ensure a sufficient depth of penetration of the protective screen structural elements into the impacting particle and thereby to carry out its destruction. The device works only for particles of a certain size. In addition, the screen is laborious to manufacture and does not provide sufficient reliability and resistance to destruction due to uneven strength of the structure.

An analogue patented invention is known: patent No. 2457160, B64G 1/56 dated 07/27/2012 "Screen for protecting a spacecraft from high-speed meteoroid impact" (Tulin D.V., Klishin A.F., Dobritsa D.B., Chukhlov V.D.). The screen contains a cellular structure made of metal mesh. The screen is made of prefabricated cells, each of which has the shape of a regular polygon and is made of two layers of a metal mesh, crimped around the perimeter by U-shaped metal strips. In one of the layers of the metal mesh, bulges are made, which are in contact with another layer. The cells are sewn together with metal wire. A reduction in the weight of the protective screen is achieved. The screen manufacturing technology requires the combination of cells and the presence of additional support points on the side of the protected structure, which complicates the screen manufacturing technology. The disadvantage of this screen is its large mass, which does not allow its use to protect small spacecraft elements.

A patented invention is known - an analogue: patent No. 2623782 B64G 1/56 dated 06/29/2017 "Screen for protecting a spacecraft from high-speed impact of particles of the space environment" (Dobritsa D.B., Gerasimov A.V., Pashkov S.V. , Khristenko Yu.F.). The screen contains a honeycomb structure made of corrugated metal mesh. The corrugations of the mesh are arranged in parallel with a step 2-3 times greater than the thickness of the mesh wire. The height of the corrugations is 3-5 times higher than the minimum characteristic size of particles colliding with the spacecraft. The screen can be made two-layer, with the corrugations of the second layer oriented perpendicular to the corrugations of the first layer. The technical result of the invention is to increase the efficiency of the spacecraft protection from high-speed particles by increasing the degree of fragmentation of these particles without increasing the mass of the screen. This device can only be used for particles of the space environment, the size of which should be 3-5 times smaller than the size of the corrugations. The disadvantage of this screen is the technological complexity and significant mass costs for its manufacture.

A patented invention is known - a prototype patent No. 2680359 dated February 19, 2019, B64G 1/56 (2006.01) "A device for protecting a spacecraft from high-speed impact of space debris particles" (authors Arkhipov V.A., Yakovlev M.V. and others .). The device is made in the form of a two-layer protective screen, each layer is made in the form of a comb of a perforated aluminum structure with cone-shaped elements, the tops of the cones are coated with a hard alloy or composite material, the cavities between the cones are filled with carbon-carbon material.

The disadvantage of this technical solution is:

- insufficient number of layers to ensure the impact of the particles of CM and MM with the top of the cone-shaped elements, at least with one of the combs;

- the probability distribution of the angles of incidence of CM and MM particles on the SC body for the SC operating orbit is not taken into account;

- low efficiency of transmission of the tangential component of the momentum of the particle.

The aim of the invention is to create a spacecraft screen to protect against the impact of a fine fraction of space debris particles or micrometeoroids, taking into account its working orbit,

The technical result is to increase the safety of spacecraft when exposed to micrometeoroids or a fine fraction of space debris particles.

The specified technical result is achieved by the fact that the screen device for protecting spacecraft from the impact of a fine fraction of space debris particles and micrometeoroids is made in the form of a multilayer package. The design of the protective screen (figure) consists of comb layers arranged parallel to each other from a perforated aluminum structure (2). The combs have cone-shaped teeth. The tops of the teeth are coated with hard alloy (3), and the space between them is filled with carbon-carbon material (4) to increase the rigidity and strength of the screen. The screen is provided with an additional layer of polymer material (1). The teeth of the screen combs have an inclination of the vertical axis in the probable direction of approach of micrometeoroids to the spacecraft based on the parameters of its orbit. Neighboring combs are displaced relative to each other so that in the probable direction of movement of micrometeoroids towards the spacecraft, their guaranteed collision with at least one of the tops of the teeth of the combs is ensured. The angles at the tops of the cones can vary within certain limits, and the tops of the cones of these aluminum layers are inclined at an angle depending on the spacecraft's orbit and shifted relative to each other in the horizontal plane to minimize the passage of micrometeoroids through the screen without interaction with the tops of the cones, as shown on the figure. The screen is installed on the spacecraft through a layer of carbon - carbon material. This design has a high screening capacity.

The substantiation of the practical feasibility of the proposed "Device for protecting the spacecraft from the impact of micrometeoroids" and the fine fraction of space debris particles is as follows.

When exposed to MM or CM particles, the design features of the protective screen have a significant effect on the ratio between the integral values of the kinetic and internal energies of primary and secondary particles, and on the redistribution of their energy, taking into account the mass, elemental composition of particles and protective material, as well as the angle of incidence of incident particles, their impact speed and the destroyed part of the screen.

The quality of protection is determined by the efficiency of fragmentation of an incident particle (characteristic size of fragments of destruction), the value of the angle of expansion of its fragments (transverse momentum acquired by fragments of a particle as a result of its impact destruction), as well as the path of a particle through the material from which the screen is made.

In the work of D.E. Grady, N.A. winfree. Impact fragmentation of high - velocity compact projectiles on thin plates: a physical and statistical characterization of fragment debris. Int. J. ImpactEng. 26 (2001), 249-262 and patent No. 2680359, it is noted that due to the low efficiency of the transfer of the tangential component of the particle momentum when it collides with a flat barrier, there is practically no penetration of the barrier elements into the body of the particle (which would contribute to its destruction). A completely different picture is observed in the multilayer structure of the protective screen (figure), which is an aluminum structure with cone-shaped elements, the tops of which are made with increased hardness (due to a coating of a hard alloy or a composite material, for example, based on graphite), which allows the tops of the protective screen to collision with MM particles to penetrate into their structure. In the range of impact velocities of interest (for geostationary orbits (GSO) the impact velocity is ~1 km/s, and for low Earth orbits (LEO) it can be as high as ~10 km/s) and for particles of the considered size (less than 5 mm), the introduction of the top of the cone into the particle occurs according to the mechanism of cratering described in patent No. 2680359. Its essence lies in the fact that the main part of the energy of the incident particle is spent on the destruction of the particle itself with the formation of a finer fraction that expands from the protective screen in the transverse direction.

The probability distribution of the angles of incidence of CM and MM particles on the spacecraft body depends on the orbit of the space object and corresponds to the Gaussian distribution [A.I. Nazarenko "Space Debris Modeling" (IKI RAS, 2013, 216 pp., ISBN 978-5-9903101-6-2)]. According to the data of the work [Space debris, in 2 books., Prince. 1. Methods of observation and models of space debris / Under. scientific ed. d.t.s., prof. G.G. Raykunov. - M.: FIZMAT LIT, 2014. -248 p. - ISBN 978-5-9221-1503-2] for low Earth orbits (less than 2000 km) with the highest probability the angles of approach of space debris particles to the spacecraft are from 60° to 120°, and for GSO the most probable angles of approach of space debris particles to The spacecraft range from 150° to 210° depending on the orbit of the spacecraft. Considering the above, it is expedient, for the chosen orbit where the spacecraft is planned to be used, to manufacture aluminum cones of the protective screen with an inclination at an angle corresponding to the maximum probability of impact of CM and MM particles, that is, the direction of the tops of the cones should be opposite to the flow of MM and CM particles . In addition, the tops of the cones of the aluminum layers of the package under consideration are shifted relative to each other in the horizontal direction in order to minimize the passage of CM and MM particles through the screen without interacting with the tops of the cones, as shown in figure 1.

The choice of the optimal screen for protection against MM is determined by the orbit of the spacecraft, which corresponds to a certain particle flux distribution density, as well as the size distribution, velocities and directions of MM and SM particles collisions with the spacecraft. Based on these conditions, the following are determined: the angle of the cone apex, the inclinations of the vertical axis of the cone apexes (in accordance with the calculated dispersion and the mathematical expectation of the particle flux for a given orbit), the number of aluminum layers in the screen, the amount of shift of each subsequent aluminum layer relative to the previous one.

The choice of a polymeric material as an additional layer before each aluminum layer is due to the following.

At the initial stage, a groove (crater) is formed in the body of the incident particle, which is elongated in the direction of the top of the cone, which, being deformed, fills it together with elements of the polymer material. The momentum transfer of the incident particle from the penetrating top of the protective screen cone is transferred along the normal to the walls of the groove of the incident particle itself, thereby contributing to its expansion in the transverse direction, which occurs according to a relatively fast mechanism. The effect is enhanced by the transition to the gas-phase state of the elements of the polymer material that enters the groove from the surface of the screen. The layer of polymeric material makes it possible to increase the effectiveness of the protective screen due to the higher pressure that occurs in the particle crater due to the transition of the polymeric material to the gas phase. The thickness of the layer of polymeric material can be ~ 5÷20 microns, which will not lead to significant changes in the mass characteristics of the protective screen. The screen is installed on the spacecraft through a layer of carbon-carbon material, which makes it possible to increase the effectiveness of the protective screen due to the high impact strength and hardness of this material and helps to reduce the range of micrometeoroids in the considered design.

Thus, the invention makes it possible to enhance the destructive effect on incoming micrometeoroids or on the fine fraction of space debris particles. The technical feasibility and practical use of the proposed screen design is beyond doubt.

Claims (1)

A device for protecting a spacecraft from the impact of micrometeoroids, containing a multilayer screen made in the form of combs arranged parallel to each other from a perforated aluminum structure, having cone-shaped teeth, the tops of which are covered with a hard alloy, and the space between them is filled with a carbon-carbon material, characterized in that that the teeth of the screen combs have an inclination of the vertical axis in the most probable direction of approach of space debris particles and micrometeoroids to the spacecraft, based on the parameters of its orbit, and in front of each comb, from the side of the tops of its teeth, there is a layer of polymeric material, and adjacent combs are displaced relative to each other so that for any direction of movement of micrometeoroids towards the spacecraft, their guaranteed collision with at least one of the tops of the teeth of the combs is ensured.

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