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The Velocity and Density Distribution of Earth-Intersecting Meteoroids: Implications for Environment ModelsMeteoroids are known to damage spacecraft: they can crater or puncture components, disturb a spacecraft's attitude, and potentially create secondary electrical effects. Because the damage done depends on the speed, size, density, and direction of the impactor, accurate environment models are critical for mitigating meteoroid-related risks. Yet because meteoroid properties are derived from indirect observations such as meteors and impact craters, many characteristics of the meteoroid environment are uncertain. In this work, we present recent improvements to the meteoroid speed and density distributions. Our speed distribution is derived from observations made by the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar. These observations are de-biased using modern descriptions of the ionization efficiency. Our approach yields a slower meteoroid population than previous analyses (see Fig. 1 for an example) and we compute the uncertainties associated with our derived distribution. We adopt a higher fidelity density distribution than that used by many older models. In our distribution, meteoroids with TJ less than 2 are assigned to a low-density population, while those with TJ greater than 2 have higher densities (see Fig. 2). This division and the distributions themselves are derived from the densities reported by Kikwaya et al. These changes have implications for the environment: for instance, the helion/antihelion sporadic sources have lower speeds than the apex and toroidal sources and originate from high-T(sub J) parent bodies. Our on-average slower and denser distributions thus imply that the helion and antihelion sources dominate the meteoroid environment even more completely than previously thought. Finally, for a given near-Earth meteoroid cratering rate, a slower meteoroid population produces a comparatively higher rate of satellite attitude disturbances.
Document ID
20170004472
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Moorhead, A. V.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Brown, P. G.
(University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada)
Campbell-Brown, M. D.
(University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada)
Moser, D. E.
(Jacobs Engineering and Science Services and Skills Augmentation Group (ESSSA) Huntsville, AL, United States)
Blaauw, R. C.
(Jacobs Engineering and Science Services and Skills Augmentation Group (ESSSA) Huntsville, AL, United States)
Cooke, W. J.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Date Acquired
May 8, 2017
Publication Date
April 10, 2017
Subject Category
Space Transportation And Safety
Report/Patent Number
M17-5669
Meeting Information
Meeting: Asteroids, Comets, Meteors (ACM) 2017
Location: Montevideo
Country: Uruguay
Start Date: April 10, 2017
End Date: April 14, 2017
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX11AB76A
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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