Damages and matter ejection during HVI on brittle structures: implications for space environment

International audienceThe population of space debris is suspected to grow onearth’s orbits. This might be due to self generationprocesses occurring when an object impacts a satellite’s surface. As brittle materials, widely used for large solar arrays, are particularly sensitive to HVI in terms of damage and matter ejection, they might play an important role in debris generation. This paper focuses on HVI on thin brittle targets like Hubble silicon solar cells. Simulated and in-situ Front back impacts on both HST-CS and simple SiO2 targets were analyzed. Ejected volume and fragments were collected and filmed to characterize potential secondary debris. A mechanical analysis of damages due to the multilayered structure of solar cells as well as Ls-Dyna SPH calculations have also been performed and are compared to experimental results to assess predictions capabilities of the SPH code