Performance analysis for spacecraft shield structures against meteoroid and space debris

Meteoroid and space debris are nowadays a recognized threat for any mission spacecraft, and the hyper velocity impact of meteoroid and space debris on spacecraft can lead to significant damage and catastrophic failure, and it has therefore become an important subject to design and build shield structures for spacecraft. Different shields have different shield performances. By analyzing the performance prediction equations developed and used for the protection of spacecraft against meteoroid and space debris, ballistic limit curves were obtained for different hyper velocity impacts of various shield materials and structures. It is concluded that the shield performances of various shield structures are lower in the first threshold velocity range, and the damage of normal impact is much serious, but the shield performance of stuffed shield structures is much better than that of others. The effect of varying shield structural parameters on the shield performance is presented and discussed.