Preliminary analysis of LDEF instrument A0187-1 : Chemistry of Micrometeoroids Experiment

Author:: Laurance, Mark R.
Published:: Jan 1, 1992.
Physical Description:: 1 electronic document
Additional Creators:: See, Thomas H., Messenger, Scott, Peterson, Robert B., Bernhard, Ronald P., Hoerz, Friedrich, Warren, Jack, and Brownlee, Donald E.

Online Version

hdl.handle.net , Connect to this object online.

Availability

Finding items...

Restrictions on Access:

Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available.
Free-to-read Unrestricted online access

Summary:

The Chemistry of Micrometeoroids Experiment (CME) exposed approximately 0.8 sq. m of gold on the Long Duration Exposure Facility's (LDEF's) trailing edge (location A03) and approximately 1.1 sq. m of aluminum in the forward-facing A11 location. The most significant results to date relate to the discovery of unmelted pyroxene and olivine fragments associated with natural cosmic dust impacts. The latter are sufficiently large for detailed phase studies, and they serve to demonstrate that recovery of unmelted dust fragments is a realistic prospect for further dust experiments that will employ more advanced collector media. We also discovered that man-made debris impacts occur on the LDEF's trailing edge with substantially higher frequency than expected, suggesting that orbital debris in highly elliptical orbits may have been somewhat underestimated.

Other Subject(s):

ASTROPHYSICS

Collection:

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Collection.

Note:

Document ID: 19920014072.
Accession ID: 92N23315.
NASA. Langley Research Center, LDEF: 69 Months in Space. First Post-Retrieval Symposium, Part 1; p 487-501.

Terms of Use and Reproduction:

No Copyright.

View MARC record | catkey: 15676017