CAST空间碎片超高速撞击试验研究进展

超高速撞击试验是开展载人航天器及大型应用卫星空间碎片超高速撞击风险评估和防护设计的基础，作为我国航天器环境效应和可靠性工程验证部门的北京卫星环境工程研究所在这个领域做了大量的工作。文章介绍了二级轻气炮超高速撞击地面模拟试验技术、典型防护结构防护性能的超高速撞击试验验证、载人航天器外露材料超高速撞击特性、毫米级弹丸7 km/s以上超高速稳定发射技术探索、高性能防护结构研究等方面的若干近期进展。展望了我国空间碎片防护需求和地面超高速撞击试验研究的发展方向。

M/OD hypervelocity impact tests carried out in CAST

This paper presents achievements of M/OD hypervelocity impact tests conducted in Beijing Institute of Spacecraft Environment Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology. (1) A new and more perfect projectile/sabot aerodynamic separating technique is developed in hypervelocity impact experiment. (2) The ballistic limit curve (BLC) of spacecraft window glass is obtained, with. the hypervelocity impact limit thickness and the critical penetration diameter of fused silica glass being 12mm and 2.5mm, respectively and according to our studies, the fused silica glass of 12 mm in thickness is safe for a 400 km altitude orbit space station in 3 years of its life time. (3) The BLC of the typical aluminum alloy Whipple shield is obtained, which agrees approximately with the generally used Christiansen’s ballistic limit equation. (4) Two kinds of new launch structures, taper-configuration and corner- configuration, are designed, with hypervelocity flyers of better integrity and planarity used in hypervelocity launching by pillow flyer technique, and numerical simulations show that the velocity of the flyer with diameter of 6mm and thickness of 2mm can reach 16km/s. (5) A new concept protection shield is designed based on the shock wave theory, and the numerical simulation shows that this new kind of shield has better protection ability than the previous ones. In a near future, China will need to protect spacecraft against the space debris, so the hypervelocity impact test is important.