Use of elemental materials for the creation of an in-situ space dust impacts detector

This research focuses on space dust ranging from 100μm to 1mm. Space dust is mainly due to secondary space debris, which is called ejecta. The objective was to create an inexpensive space dust impacts detector using elemental materials. The detector is a glass/epoxy laminate printed circuit board with an area of 81cm² for a weight of 30g. The detector can estimate the number of impacts and can give an approximation of the space dust size. The detector will be mounted on Horyu II that will operate in polar orbit for one year. In this article the authors report: a) the production of ejecta, b) the ejecta experiments on solar array coupon, aluminium honeycomb and CFRP/aluminium honeycomb, c) the detector's working principle and d) the estimations of the minimum detectable size of debris and collision probability. The ejecta experiments demonstrated that the ejecta's mass is 7 to 46 times higher than the projectile's mass. For space dust in the range 100μm – 600μm in diameter, the collision probability was calculated to be 16.5 percent. The detector's capabilities to detect broken lines and to transmit the data to the on-board computer were also demonstrated. This in-situ space dust impacts detector is thus a very promising research area for its lightness, low cost and its ability to provide immediate data on space dust population.