Micrometeorites are a potential hazard for any space mission, including NASA’s Mars Sample Return. The tiny rocks can travel up to 50 miles per second. At these speeds, «even dust could cause damage to a spacecraft,» said Bruno Sarli, a NASA engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
October 13, 2022
Micrometeorites are a potential hazard for any space mission, including NASA’s Mars Sample Return. The tiny rocks can travel up to 50 miles per second. At these speeds, «even dust could cause damage to a spacecraft,» said Bruno Sarli, a NASA engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Sarli leads a team designing shields to protect NASA’s Mars Earth Entry System from micrometeorites and space debris. Recently, he traveled to a NASA lab designed to safely re-create dangerous impacts to test the team’s shields and computer models.
Set far away from residents and surrounded by dunes, the Remote Hypervelocity Test Laboratory at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has supported every human spaceflight program from the Space Shuttle to Artemis. The lab also supports testing for the International Space Station, Commercial Crew, and Commercial Resupply programs.
The lab uses two-stage light gas guns to accelerate objects to speeds that simulate micrometeorite and orbital debris impacts on spacecraft shielding.
