Determination Method of Sever Criteria of Aluminum Tethers in Space Debris Impact

Abstract

Since a large number of debris exists in the low earth orbit (LEO), deorbiting of the debris is an important subject in the space development. Electro-dynamic tether (EDT) system is a promising method to remove the debris from the LEO. The EDT is cost-effective because the material of the tether is cheap and the propellant is not required. However, the diameter of the tether is thin and the length is very long. Then, the EDT has a high risk to be severed by small meteoroids and the other small debris. To assess the survivability of the EDT, sever criteria are needed and have been proposed. However, the previously proposed criteria are different from each other, and they are not well grounded. In this paper, we propose a new experimental method to determine sever criteria based on the experimental results. Then, we carry out hypervelocity impact experiments to determine the new criteria and compare them with the previous criteria. Moreover, we calculate the survivability of an EDT system on the basis of proposed sever criteria.