Orion Artemis I as Flown MMOD Analysis

The Orion spacecraft conducted the Artemis I flight around the Moon from November 16 through December 11, 2022. After the flight, the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Hypervelocity Impact Technology (HVIT) Group performed a Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) analysis using the Bumper 3 risk assessment tool to predict the number of small impacts that would likely have occurred during the mission. Separately, the same group inspected the Orion capsule for hypervelocity impact damage features. The results of the inspection were compared to those of the analysis to aid in improving the analysis, including the environment models. The comparison showed that Bumper analysis predictions were generally within one integer value of the damage found, which is considered high accuracy. As this was the first large, non-ablative returned surface from a lunar mission, this effort extends the MMOD community’s insight beyond low Earth orbit into cis-lunar space.