Space Shuttle meteoroid and orbital debris impact damage

Post-flight surveys of meteoroid and orbital debris (M&OD) impacts on the Space Shuttle Orbiter are conducted to identify damage caused by hypervelocity impacts from M&OD and to identify the source (i.e., whether meteoroid or orbital debris) of the projectiles responsible [1,2] This report provides data on Orbiter M&OD impacts for a five-year period and describes in detail the 39 most significant impacts. For the period 6/92 through 12/99 there were 49 Shuttle Transportation System (STS) missions (STS-50 through STS-103) of which 38 had post-flight inspections to identify M&OD impacts. Approximately 10% of the vehicle is surveyed in the M/OD inspections. The data for the 39 most significant impacts based on size found during the inspections are summarized in Table 1. This work contains estimates of impactor size which were determined using appropriate impact damage penetration equations that were derived by hypervelocity impact (HVI) test and analysis on relevant Orbiter materials. Although predictions for numbers of impacts are produced for each STS mission, we do not compare those predictions to the actual damage reported here as further efforts must be made to analyze the as-flown attitude timeline and adjust the predicted damage accordingly. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.