How space debris shells the ISS

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 2017, the traditional annual European Space Debris Conference was held. More than three hundred scientists from different parts of the world have tried to determine effective methods of combating pollution of the near-earth space.

As a result of the conference, approximately 750 thousand different debris exceeding 1 cm (in cross-section) were announced, and another 166 million debris exceeding 1 mm.

The speed of space debris in orbit relative to other objects can reach 10 km / sec. Such a high speed means that the object carries colossal kinetic energy and a collision with the working spacecraft of even a tiny debris will cause serious damage to the latter, up to its complete rendering into an inoperative state.

Here are the results of the debris bombing of the International Space Station:

On the left in the photo you can see the outer aluminum armor 102 mm thick. protecting the supercritical blocks of the ISS, which got a piece of plastic something like this:

… at a speed of 7,000 meters per second.

On the right side of the same photo, you see a 38 mm fragment. aluminum protection into which a 6x12 mm bolt fell tangentially. at about the same speed

A steel sheet is installed in front of the aluminum protection block:

… which got the same bolt:

There are layers of fiberglass and ceramic sheets in front of the aluminum.

And this is the protection from the Russian ISS Zvezda module pierced with an aluminum bolt at a speed of 6800 m / s. Something a lot of bolts are flying in space:-)

Portholes get it too. The thickness of the glass is 14 mm, such cracks remain in it when sand grains hit at a speed of 7152 m / s.

By the way, portholes at the station consist of four such glasses, for complete protection, otherwise you never know. In the background is the back of the 102mm aluminum block shown above.

Astronaut Timothy Peak in one of the pictures showed a porthole window with a crack.

The shot with the "pierced" window was taken by Tim Peek in Cupola, a module attached to the International Space Station (ISS) in February 2016. The module in the form of a panoramic observation dome consists of seven transparent windows up to 80 cm in diameter; through it, it is convenient to observe the surface of the Earth, outer space and people or equipment working in outer space.

The entire structure weighing 1.8 tons and 1.5 meters high is about 2 meters in diameter. All portholes are made of transparent fused quartz, and from the outside they are equipped with automatic shockproof devices (dampers) to protect the module from micrometeorites and space debris. Nevertheless, all threats in space cannot be avoided: the astronaut recalled this by publishing a picture of the window, on which a chip with a diameter of about 7 mm is clearly visible.

And this is a tarp for closing the docking hatches between stations during construction.

The tarp hung in one of the hatches of the international station for almost two years. It is composed of multiple layers of fiberglass, ceramic, glass and ultra-strong steel fibers. The patches are for communications during construction, and the blue and green stickers are small pebbles and debris found after the tarp returned to the ground.

Unfortunately, the amount of garbage is constantly growing. For example, in 2007, the Chinese tested a ballistic missile by firing at a satellite. This added 3,000 new debris in orbit.

In 2009, the failed Russian spacecraft Cosmos 2251 accidentally collided with the American communications satellite Iridium - +2000 debris fragments.

This is not the first time space debris has damaged the ISS. In 2013, a tiny "pebble from space" broke through a solar panel.

Photo submitted on April 29, 2013 by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

This is how the debris bombardment of the ISS takes place.