Simulation of Micron-Sized Debris Populations in Low Earth Orbit

The update of ORDEM2000, the NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model, to its new version ORDEM2010, is nearly complete. As a part of the ORDEM upgrade, this paper addresses the simulation of micro-debris (greater than 10 m and smaller than 1 mm in size) populations in low Earth orbit. The principal data used in the modeling of the micron-sized debris populations are in-situ hypervelocity impact records, accumulated in post-flight damage surveys on the space-exposed surfaces of returned spacecrafts. The development of the micro-debris model populations follows the general approach to deriving other ORDEM2010-required input populations for various components and types of debris. This paper describes the key elements and major steps in the statistical inference of the ORDEM2010 micro-debris populations. A crucial step is the construction of a degradation/ejecta source model to provide prior information on the micron-sized objects (such as orbital and object-size distributions). Another critical step is to link model populations with data, which is rather involved. It demands detailed information on area-time/directionality for all the space-exposed elements of a shuttle orbiter and damage laws, which relate impact damage with the physical properties of a projectile and impact conditions such as impact angle and velocity. Also needed are model-predicted debris fluxes as a function of object size and impact velocity from all possible directions. In spite of the very limited quantity of the available shuttle impact data, the population-derivation process is satisfactorily stable. Final modeling results obtained from shuttle window and radiator impact data are reasonably convergent and consistent, especially for the debris populations with object-size thresholds at 10 and 100 m.