In situ diagnostics for a small-bore hypervelocity impact facility

New in situ diagnostic capabilities and improvements made to the previously reported 1.8 mm bore, two-stage light-gas gun facility located at the California Institute of Technology are described. The Small Particle Hypervelocity Impact Range (SPHIR) facility is capable of routinely producing launch speeds of 5–7 km/s for launch package masses < 6 mg, with maximum speeds exceeding 10 km/s. The facility features a comprehensive ensemble of in situ diagnostics that are available for simultaneous implementation in every impact experiment. A fast (150,000 fps) camera is used routinely to provide impactor velocimetry. A gated, intensified ultra-high-speed camera is used in conjunction with an optical technique to create shadowgraph images of hypervelocity impact phenomena with very short exposure times (25 ns) and inter-frame times (