Mesh double-bumper shield: A low-weight alternative for spacecraft meteoroid and orbital debris protection

Protecting Earth-orbiting spacecraft against micro-meteoroid/orbital debris impact damage using composite structural systems and materials: An overview

“…Other multi-wall shielding concepts involving composite materials as the inner bumper(s) that have been tested under HVI loading conditions were a Nextel multi-shock shield (see, e.g., Cour-Palais and Crews, 1990;Boslough et al, 1993;Cour-Palais et al, 1993;Thompson and Johnson, 1993), a mesh double-bumper shield (see, e.g., Boslough et al, 1993;Christiansen and Kerr, 1993;Horz and Cintala, 1993), a hybrid Nextel/aluminum multi-shock shield (Christiansen, 1993), a double-bumper shield using with a glass reinforced (GLARE) metal laminate inner bumper (Lambert and Schneider, 1995), an all-mesh multi-bumper shield (Horz et al, 1995), and a so-called "stuffed Whipple shield" in which a layer of Kevlar and Nextel cloth blankets is placed between the bumper and pressure wall of a traditional all-aluminum Whipple-type system (see, e.g., Christiansen et al, 1995;Destefanis and Faraud, 1997).…”

Properties of ejecta generated at high-velocity perforation of thin bumpers made from different constructional materials

“…The thin aluminum plate is the classic bumper providing protection against meteoroids or space debris particles for manned spaceships. The mesh bumpers are also used in spacecraft protective shields (see, for example, "Mesh DoubleBumper" [11] and protection of the Russian ISS module "Zarya" [12]). Non-metallic composite materials, especially fibereglass plastics, are widely used in space technologies because of their high strength ability combined with relatively low density.…”

Hypervelocity impact tests against metallic meshes

“…The multi-layer stuffing includes an aluminum mesh to disperse fragments generated by an impact of space debris. Christiansen and Kerr [3] conducted hypervelocity impact (HVI) tests on a mesh double-bumper shield as shown in Fig. 2.…”