National Aeronautics and Space Administration Orbital Debris =---- Quarterly News —^ Volume 14, Issue 2 April 2010 Orbital Debris Success Story – A Decade in the Making During the post-flight inspection after the the cooling loop bonded to the inside surface of the STS-128 flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery, 14 radiator facesheet (see Figure 2a). micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) impacts During this time, the on-orbit heat rejection on the crew cabin windows, up to 16 impacts on the system in the Shuttle vehicle consisted of two Freon wing leading edge and nose cap, and 21 impacts on coolant loops routed through the radiator panels the payload bay cooling radiators were found. Of attached to the payload bay doors and accumulator these, one is perhaps the most important because it tanks. There was no provision for isolating a leak in highlights a success story over 10 years in the making the system. Puncture of a tube by MMOD would (see Figure 1). totally deplete the coolant in one of the two loops, Although not the largest, the impact crater was necessitating that approximately half of the heat strategically placed directly over one of the cooling sources (such as avionics in the crew cabin) be tubes bonded to the back side of the radiator face switched off. Flight rules under this situation required sheet. The impact crater is important because, if not for decisions to “harden” the Space Shuttle fleet continued on page 2 to the increasing orbital debris environment in the 1990s, the impact would have breached the Freon cooling loop and, by flight rule, forced the Shuttle to land at the next primary landing site (PLS) within 24 hours, resulting, potentially, in loss-of-mission. The Space Shuttle was designed in the 1970s, before the risk from human-made orbital debris was widely recognized. The Shuttle was originally designed with requirements for protection against only the micrometeoroid environment. Almost immediately, damage from orbital debris started showing up. The first significant impact was a 0.2-mm paint chip that damaged a window during the STS-7 mission and required the window to be replaced prior to re-flight. In the early 1990s, NASA applied the BUMPER code to predict the risk of damage to different surfaces of the spacecraft given their orbit, orientation, and the MMOD environment. Analysis Figure 1. Impact crater on the radiator located on the A publicaon of showed that the Shuttle risk was highly dependent interior of the Shuttle payload bay doors. The impact was on an aluminum “doubler” directly over the tube carrying the NASA Orbital on its flight attitude or orientation. The highest Freon coolant used to cool electronic equipment and Debris Program Office vulnerability to loss-of-mission was penetration of avionics in the Shuttle. Orbital Debris Quarterly News Success Story continued from page 1 a next PLS abort, i.e., that the Shuttle mission flow system in the event of a leak, some of the during this critical mission phase (due to loss be aborted immediately and preparations made avionics would be turned off during reentry of redundancy in the avionics systems). to land at the next available primary landing site. and landing, decreasing the ability to recover The BUMPER predictions were put to the Because coolant is lost quickly from the pumped from some other anomaly that could occur test during the first flight of the U.S. Microgravity Laboratory (USML-1) during STS-50. One of the experiments required that the Shuttle fly New Bonded Al Strip nose up, payload bay into the velocity vector 0.005” Silver-Teflon Tape (0.02” H x 0.4” W x 15’ L) for 10 days of the 14-day mission. After much discussion with Shuttle managers and 0.005” Silver-Teflon Tape impact tests on various spacecraft components that were contained in the payload bay of the Orbiter, it was decided to fly the mission F21 Tube F21 Tube as planned. Fortunately, no MMOD impact breached the Freon cooling loop. However, post-flight inspection of the radiators showed BEFORE MOD AFTER MOD that the number of impact features closely matched the pre-flight BUMPER predictions a. b. and were much higher than typical for Shuttle Figure 2. The Shuttle radiators are curved panels on the inside of the payload bay doors that are exposed to missions flown with the payload bay facing space when the doors are open. The panels are a honeycomb structure sandwiched between a facesheet Earth. 1 and a backsheet with a total thickness of either 12.7 or 22.9 mm. Aluminum tubes are bonded to the backside of the 0.28-mm thick facesheet at intervals. This figure shows a cross section of the honeycomb radiator showing the configuration before and after the addition of the 0.5-mm aluminum “doubler.” continued on page 3 Simulation of impact after 2 micro-seconds with doubler: crater through thermal tape (green) and penetration nearly through doubler (red)... i.e., similar to actual damage. Simulation of same impact after 2 micro-seconds without doubler: crater through thermal tape (green), through facesheet (yellow) and through flow tube wall (blue)... i.e., leak would have occurred without doubler. Figure 3. Hydrocode simulation of the impact with and without the aluminum “doubler.” Without the doubler, the Freon cooling loop would have been breached. 2 ....... ..... ............................................................................................_..........................................^ri.i^ www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov Success Story continued from page 2 After STS-50, new flight rules were Freon system (accumulator and pumps) so that entire NASA Orbital Debris and Space implemented that required the Shuttle to fly sufficient Freon remained to activate the cooling Shuttle management team. The Orbital Debris with the payload bay to the Earth and the tail system for all electronics during reentry, when Program Office created the debris environment towards the velocity vector “unless payload or heat is rejected to the flash evaporator system. flux models that were based on solid science orbiter requirements dictate otherwise.” 2 This If sufficient coolant is saved, the need for a and measurement data. The Hypervelocity procedure worked well while the Shuttle flew next PLS abort is alleviated. The modifications Impact Test Facility (HIT-F) team applied independently. Flights to the Russian space were incorporated into the Shuttle fleet during the BUMPER code, which demonstrated the station Mir and later to the International Space routine maintenance between 1998 and 1999. vulnerability of the Freon cooling system and Station (ISS), once again exposed the cooling These modifications, made 11 years prior to the its impact to overall mission risk. Then, the loops to higher risk of MMOD impact for long STS-128 mission, saved the mission from early Space Shuttle Program Management made periods while docked. termination. critical decisions in tight economic conditions In 1997, modifications were approved by During the STS-128 mission, an orbital to enhance the safety to the Orbiters from the the Space Shuttle Program to “harden” the debris particle impacted the aluminum doubler MMOD threat. A decade later, their hard work Orbiters from the increasing orbital debris directly above the Freon tube. Simulations and tough decisions paid off. environment. Three of these modifications show that had the doubler not been in place, 1. Christiansen, E. L., Bernhard, R. P., involved the Freon cooling system, two of the Freon tube would have been breached Hyde, J. L., et.al. “Assessment of High Velocity which would prove critical for STS-128. First, (Figure 3.). Without the second modification Impacts on Exposed Space Shuttle Surfaces.” an extra layer of 0.5-mm thick aluminum isolating the leak to the radiator panels, all of Proceedings of the First European Conference on Space (aluminum doubler) was bonded to the radiator the Freon (which is under pressure) would have Debris, ESA-SD-01, 447-452(1993). facesheet directly over the cooling tubes (see leaked from the system, requiring the Shuttle 2. Portree, D. S. F. and Loftus, J. P. Jr. Figure 2b). Automatic isolation valves were to land within 24 hours and with reduced Orbital Debris and Near-Earth Environmental added to each coolant loop that could isolate avionics. Management: A Chronology, NASA Reference a leak in a radiator panel from the rest of the This success story is a tribute to the Publication 1320, (1993). ♦ Old and New Satellite Breakups Identified The U.S. Space Surveillance Network small with the largest exhibiting a radar cross- near 630 km with an inclination of 97.9 degrees. (SSN) officially confirmed in January the breakup section of about 0.02 m 2, roughly equivalent to The spacecraft, which had not maneuvered since of a Russian spacecraft slightly more than a 15 cm in diameter. mid-2007, exhibited a minor orbit perturbation decade ago and detected the fragmentation of a Two other spacecraft in the Meteor 2 series on 4 February. Chinese spacecraft during February. Fortunately, have been linked to anomalous fragmentation neither event produced significant numbers of events, including Meteor 2-17, for which 30 large debris. debris have been cataloged to date. Meteors continued on page 4 Meteor 2-8 (1982-025A, U.S. Satellite 2-5, 2-6, and 2-7 have Number 13113) was the first of a series of also released cataloged Soviet meteorological spacecraft to employ debris ranging from 8 680 the Tsyklon (SL-14) launch vehicle and an to 19 in number. All 670 X Apogee operational orbit of approximately 950 km at of the Meteor 2 events 660 Perigee an inclination of 82.5 degrees. The spacecraft, have occurred many 650 which apparently ceased functioning in the years after launch and mid-1980s, experienced a minor perturbation are possibly due to a 640 Yaogan 1 in its orbit in May 1999.