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Space, the final frontier of mankind. Since the launching of the first artificial satellite,
Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union in 1957, more and more artificial satellite and spacecraft
launching out to space. Until now a days there are more than 560 operating satellite orbiting
around Earth, each serving different purposes. It is undeniable that artificial satellites are very
important for human civilization, satellites are used for a large number of purposes, ranged
from military to civilian, which including communication, navigation, observation,
forecasting weather, and list goes on. Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also
categorized as satellites. Satellite orbits vary greatly, it can generally classify as low earth
orbit, polar orbit and geostationary orbit.

MMOD, shorts for micrometeoroids and orbital debris are objects that orbiting around
earth. Micrometeoroids are small particle of rock, typically metallic in space, usually
weighing less than a gram. Mircometeoroids are very common in space, yet they have less
stable orbits compare with meteoroids due to their small size. Orbital debris, also known as
space debris, space junk and space waste. It is the collection of objects created by humans
that orbiting around the earth. Unlike satellites, orbital debris no longer serve any useful
purpose, they consist of broken satellite, spent rocket stages, surface degradation products
and so on. Without the force required to send them back to earth or move to other place, these
space junk will remain in space, orbiting earth almost indefinitely until external forces that
changes its course.

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Spacecraft that are launched to operate at orbit are susceptible to impacts by MMOD,
which are shorts for micrometeoroids and orbital debris. These impacts possess a threat to the
operating satellite. Depending on where the impact occurs, size, composition and speed of the
impacting object, it could cause damages to orbiting satellite. The impact can occurs at
extremely high speeds, damaging crucial system which caused the satellite to lost function or
even causing casualty in space station. Thus, it is important for spacecraft designer to be
aware of these threats and providing protection in order to ensure the operational of satellites.
Yet, this is very challenging as there¶s a lot of limitation such as weight and the condition
under space make it hard for repairing and maintenance.

So, how many MMOD are there in our orbits? The United State Space Surveillance
Network (SSN) has been tracking space object since 1957. SSN able to track space objects
from 10 cm in diameter. Currently, SSN tracks more than 8,000 man-made orbiting objects.
The objects range from satellites that weight about few tons to spent rocket bodies that
weight few kg. Out of the 8,000 tracked objects, around 560 are operating satellite, the rest
are space junk, which is about 7% only. This number still doesn¶t include small size orbital
debris and micrometeoroids. This shows that providing protection for the satellite is very
important to minimize the damage caused by impact by the MMOD.

In order to protect satellite against impact by the MMOD, the approach is by placing
extra bumper as shield to the satellite. However, most spacecraft can¶t include thick
protective shield due to limitation of cost, design, weight and/or mission constrain. Therefore
the idea is how to modify the original wall of the satellite to wall system with outer and inner
bumper that will be able to protect the satellite, with little or none changes to the design and
weight.


















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To successfully modifying the wall of the satellite, there are certain consideration and
limitation to the choice of materials and design. These considerations are important for
engineer and designer to look through before choosing the suitable material and design that
will able to provide the protection required.

 Weight is definitely one of the major considerations for space applications.
As each extra kilogram will cost a fortune to send it to outer space. Currently an extra
kilogram will cost an extra of about 50k to launch it. This is due to several factor, first of all,
thousands of professional workers are required to build and launch a rocket. Secondly, design
and development state of a rocket could take years and billions. During this time, the
company doesn¶t obtain any income. Finally and most important is the fuel, the escape
velocity for earth is 11.2km/s. However depending on the altitude of orbit, the velocity
required is lower, for a 9000km altitude, the velocity required is around 7.1km/s. As we can
see, huge amount of energy are required to achieve such high velocity. For most rockets, the
fuel can makes up over 90% of the total weight. Thus it is essential to control the weight of a
satellite.
   

 in the low earth orbital (LEO) atmosphere,
atomic oxygen is the main components. Under long exposure, it can eventually degrade
certain materials especially polymers. It will gradually reduce the thickness and reduce the
properties of the materials. These will greatly affect the service life of the wall-system and
eventually the service life of satellites. Generally, this can be controlled by an extra thin layer
of aluminium wrapping around the exposed materials.



 For sure the mechanical properties of the material are
another main consideration. Mechanical properties like ductility, strength, toughness,
stiffness are the main factors in deciding the effectiveness of the wall system of the satellite.
The mechanical properties will directly affect on how much impact the wall can hold and
how well it can protect the satellite from any damages.


Temperature is another important consideration to make, as in the
orbit, the temperature varies greatly depending by the position of the satellite relative to the
sun. The temperature variation may range from -100å to 100 å. These temperatures can
cause thermal shock which produce residual stress due to the change of temperature. It is
estimated that a satellite with an orbital period of 90 min will experience 175 000 thermal
cycling during a 30 year service life. In the same time, it is important to ensure that the
selected material able to retain their properties under the critical temperature. Thermal
stability is essential criteria in choosing the suitable material for the spacecraft.
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[ Earth orbiting spacecraft are exposed to ultra high
speed impact by the micrometeoroids. This is why a HVI test is a required consideration for
our design and choices of materials. HVI refers to impact speed on the order or 2km/s or
higher. The study of composite materials under such condition is relatively new in the
industry. Oppose to ordinary low velocity impact, the impacting materials under HVI will
behave like fluids. Extreme velocity will cause vaporization of both the impacting material
and the target. As soon as the impact occurs, the impacting material can undergo temporary
liquefaction, it can generate plasma discharges which can interfere with the electronics on
board of the satellite. Under earth orbit, a HVI by micrometeoroids can caused anything from
minor degradation to the complete annihilation of the satellite without the proper protection.


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`! "#Serving life is another consideration that designer need to take in


account. As most of the time, the satellites are expected to be working for a long period of
time due to the high cost of launching it to space. Thus it is important to choose a material
with long durability and stability over time.








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As we can see choosing the right material for space application is very important
because it involves a lot of different consideration. Depending on the choices of materials, it
can directly affect the performance and serving life of the satellite. Under such challenging
requirements and limitations, it makes composite our number one choice of materials. This is
because composite materials can provide wonderful properties such as thermal stability and
good mechanical properties at a low weight ratio. As technology getting more advance by the
days, it allow engineers to precisely design and create specified composites that can fit in the
specific application that can fulfil the requirements.

In fact, more and more space applications are designed to be made of composites
materials such as space station trusses, robotic arms and booms, fuel tanks and pressure
vessels. As one of the example design, the truss structure in low earth orbiting (LEO) space
stations which is used to support the crew modules, lab modules and solar arrays. This truss
structure can be made of composite with hybrid construction with ply orientation. This
certain hybrid composite are made by the combination of T-50 carbon fibre-epoxy laminates,
P-75 carbon fibre-epoxy laminates, aluminium foil as coating and adhesive layers.

As another example, a metal-matrix composite - Graphite/Al composites are used in


high-gain antenna boom for the Hubble Space Telescope (0 ). This composite is made
with diffusion-bonded sheet of P100 graphite fibres in 6061 Al. This boom offers the desired
stiffness and low Coefficient of thermal expansion to maintain the position of the antenna
during space maneuvres.

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From the examples, we can see that the composites being used are carefully designed
with the specific materials and specific orientation to suit each of the specific application.
Using this advantage, the composites can optimize their performance for each of the
application which using the minimal amount of materials which is important for space
applications. More composite materials are being invented and created each years, from the
choice of materials, composition, orientation, structure and so on, there¶s are limitless
combinations which means there are limitless possibilities and potential for composite
materials. In future, it is believed that composite materials will be used for most of the major
components in space applications.

Concerning our main application for this assignment, which the wall system for
satellite. This certain wall system is expected to provide protection for satellite under MMOD
environment. There are several designs and material choices available for the satellite, but to
have a better comparison, we¶ll focus on wall that consists of 2 bumpers which are the inner
bumper and the outer bumper. Each bumper will be a multi-wall system, consisting
composites laminates of different composites.

Our choice of composite materials included Kevlar, graphite/epoxy and spectra fibres.
Kevlar fibres are chosen mainly due the good strength-to-weight ratio of Kevlar fibres, in the
same time, Kevlar fibres can maintain its strength down to -196å. Similarly, graphite epoxy
is chosen for their light weight, good strength with the extra stiffness and corrosion resistance.
Spectra fibre, another name forultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMW), is one of
the manmade fibres with highest strength-to-weight ratio. The high strength provided by
spectra making it another excellent selection for building the bumper.

As we can see, the choices of materials are mainly emphasize on the strength-to-
weight ratio as weight is an important issue for space applications. It is very important to
minimize the weight to cut down cost. To fabricate the laminates bumpers, the prepreg lay-up
process is chosen due to the high requirement of high fibre volume fraction to further
improve the mechanical properties of the bumpers. In the same time, using composite fibres
able to eliminate severe cracking and petaling.
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2.4.1 Introduction

Prepreg lay-up is one of the two major methods of hand lay-up process. It is a very common
process in the aerospace industry as well as making prototype parts Wing structures, radomes
and yachts parts are made using this process. Sometimes, it also called as autoclave
processing or vacuum bagging. This is a labour intensive process, the labour cost are 50 to
100 times greater than other high-volume process such as filament winding and pultrusion.
This process is chosen as our composite manufacturing process because it can manufacture
complicated shapes with very high fibre volume fractions. In the same time, Kevlar and
graphite/epoxy are some of the usual material used for prepreg lay-up process.

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2.4.2 Prepreg preparation

Before the lay-up process, one must prepare the raw material or prepreg. Prepreg are
rolls of uncured composite materials in which the fibres have been preimpregnaterd or
combined with the resin, thus the name, prepreg. In order to make prepregs, the fibres are
drawn, guided and then flattened onto a belt, forming a web or sheet of fibres. The fibers
have to be controlled at a precise thinkness, oriented nicely without overlap or gap in between.

After that, the fibres are mated with two backing sheets, on the top and bottom. These
backing sheets have been coated with resin to the proper thickness; the resin used would have
been mixed with catalyst, accelerator, and other required material. Using sets of rollers, the
sandwich of backing materials, resin and fibres is compacted. Finally, the sandwich is being
heat to a specific temperature for a specific time. This heating will cause the resin to be
slightly cured. This process is to ensure the sandwich will intact nicely but not overcured.
This is because the material still needs to go through a series of prepreg lay-up process.

Finally, the sheet of material is then trimmed and wound up as prepreg material.
Because the resin has already been initiated, the prepreg must be kept in refrigerator to
prevent premature curing.

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2.4.3 The lay-up Process

For aerospace applications such as our main application, the prepreg lay-up process
has to take place in a very clean and neat atmosphere with controlled humidity and
temperature. Workers are required to cover their heads, body and shoes with clean clothing
accessories and duct is prohibited in the room. Such precautions are required to ensure the
quality and results of the product are carefully controlled and consistent.

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First of all, the raw material or prepreg is kept refrigerated before the process starts.
To make the parts, the prepreg is removed from the refrigerator and brought slowly to room
temperature. Once the pregreg reaches room temperature, the prepreg is laid on a cutting
table, using the reciprocating action of knife, laser, or ultrasonic cutter, the prepreg is cut into
desired shape and length. To ensure the efficiency, consistency, repeatability and quality of
the cutting, the cutting machines are computer controlled by through software.

After the cutting is done, prepregs are laid on top of an open mould. Release agent is
applied to the mould for easy removal of the part. The backing film, both top and bottom
films are removed from the prepreg. The prepregs are laid in the sequence and orientation
according to the design. For parts for greater safety issue or aerospace application such as this
one will required more care. Quality control personnel will check the ply sequence after each
layers of prepreg are laid down. In the same time, it is very essential to ensure that there¶s no
entrapped air as it will cause porosity. By using squeezing rollers, the entrapped air is
removed and an intimate contact is created.

2.4.4 Vacuum bagging

Once all the prepreg layers are arranged in the desired orientation and sequence,
vacuum bagging preparations are made for curing and consolidation of the parts. The
procedures for vacuum bagging are:

I. A release film is applied on top of the prepreg. This is to allow entrapped air,
excess resins, and volatiles to escape.

II. Apply bleeder, a porous fabric, on top of the release film. This is to absorb
moisture and excess resin from the prepregs.

III. Apply barrier film on the top of bleeder. The function is similar with release
film but it is not porous.

IV. Apply breather layer on top of barrier film, a porous fabric similar to bleeder.
This is to create even pressure and allowing air, volatiles to escape.

V. The final layer is the vacuum bag. It is a expendable polyamide (PA) film or
reusable elastomer.

VI. The film is sealed on all sides of the prepregs using seal tape, a wide rubbery
material that sticks to both the mould and bagging material.

VII. A nozzle connected to vacuum hose is inserted into the vacuum bag to create
vacuum inside the bag.
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2.4.4 Autoclave

After the bagging, the mould is placed inside an autoclave for curing and
consolidation. An autoclave is a chamber that can maintain the required pressure and
temperature for the processing of the composite. After placing the parts, the autoclave door is
closed and connections to thermocouples and vacuum hoses are made. Depending on the
resin material and geometry of the parts, a cure cycle is run to process the parts. The cure
cycle is computer-controlled, one only required to key in the cure cycle data.

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After the curing process is done, the parts is taken out and allowed to be cooled down.
Finally, the vacuum bag is removed and the parts can be taken out.
2.4.5 Advantages and Disadvantages

The advantages of prepreg lay-up process include:

j Allows production of parts with high fibre volume fraction more than 60%.
j Complex parts can be easily manufactured using this process.
j Very strong and stiff parts can be fabricated
j Suitable for making prototype parts.

The disadvantages of prepreg lay-up process include:

j Labour intensive, not suitable for mass production


j Parts produced are expensive

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After choosing the composite materials and the process, now is up to the design the
multi-wall system for both of the outer and inner bumper for the satellite. Fig 2.5.i shows the
overview of the structural laminate composites design, manufacturing, and testing. It is
totally random on the direction and degree of impact that cause by collision by the MMOD.
Therefore the wall systems have to be designed to be evenly strong in every orientation. In
order to provide an even and balanced composite, a minimum of 10% of the plies in each of
the 0Õ, +45Õ, -45Õ, and 90Õ are used.

As mentioned, our design consists of 2 bumpers, the outer and inner bumper. For the
outer bumper, a dual-wall system with Kevlar and graphite/epoxy are used. This is because of
the thermal stability of these materials. Spectra fibre is less suitable for the outer bumper due
to its low melting temperature of 120å. The temperature on the space varies greatly and the
impact might produce high heat. This might melt the spectra fibre if used as the material for
the outer bumper. As for the inner bumper, a triple-wall system with Kevlar and Spectra
fibres are used. This is to provide the maximum protection to the satellite using the stronger
spectra and Kevlar instead of graphite/epoxy. These 2 bumpers will the main protection for
the satellite under MMOD environment.

The impact under MMOD can be occurs under a very high speed, which produce
great impact and energy. However, the impact can be very small as well. This huge range and
randomness make designer hard to estimate the component¶s probability of survival and
confidence level. Therefore, it is important to create the multi-wall system bumper as strong
and stiff as possible which will be able to provide the protection necessary for the electronic
parts in the satellite. Yet, there¶s a limitation to the weight and cost of the bumper as well as
other considerations. This makes the design a very challenging works for the engineers and
scientists.

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Before the usage of composite materials, the walls of satellite are made of light
weight alloys, mainly aluminium alloys due to its low density. Fig 2.6.i shows the sequences
of a conventional metal design, manufacturing and testing. As an example, the 1st satellite
Sputnik 1 by Soviet Union, it is shield with aluminium-magnesium-titanium AMG6T.
However due to the limitation in weight, the protection given are usually not enough. Some
of the satellite don¶t even include bumper in the design to minimize the weight of the satellite.
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This part discussed on the assessment done to compare the effectiveness of composite
materials as the bumpers. The comparison is done by comparing the composite with an equal-
weight aluminium alloy for both of the inner and outer bumpers. The test carried out was
mainly HVI tests.

2.7.1 Outer bumper

The dual-wall systems with Kevlar and Graphite/Epoxy (Gr/Ep) outer bumper was compared
against an equal weight all aluminium dual wall systems. This test was carried out by
Schonberg in1990. It is found that aluminium bumper is more effective spreading out the
debris created by the initial impact. This is because Kevlar bumpers prevented complete
break-up of the projectiles, which decrease the dispersion of debris cloud fragments, thus
increasing the likelihood of pressure wall perforation. The pressure wall damage in the Gr/Ep
layer is more wide-spread compare with Kevlar layer. Perforations in Gr/Ep consist of several
small holes while Kevlar shows a large hole. From these result, brought to conclusion that
using a laminated composite as the outer bumper does not offer any protection advantage as
compare to the protection provided by aluminium.

Similar studies were done by Christiansen (1987), Colombo et al. (2003) and Li et al. (2004).
All the studies showed that composite material bumpers only give slight improvement in the
outer bumper.

2.7.2 Inner Bumper



Similarly, the response of triple-wall system with Kevlar and Spectra inner bumpers was
compared against all metallic triple-wall system. This study was done by Schonberg and
Walker at 1991. In most of the test, it is showed that Kevlar panel were not perforated, while
both aluminium and spectra panel were perforated. However, the pressure walls in Spectra
panel show little or no damages. These results clearly show that composite materials do
increase the protection of spacecraft against MMOD impacts.

Similar studies were carried out using different composite materials and design under HVI.
Some of it included a double-bumper shield with a glass reinforced metal laminate (Lambert
and Schneider, 1995) and hybrid Nextel/aluminium multi-shock shield (Christiansen, 1993).
The studies show that composite shows superb results as the inner bumper.

The studies also show that combination of composite bumper with aluminium bumper
produced less damaging. This is due to the reasons that it will increase the efficiency of
converting the kinetic energy into internal thermal energy. The combined walls were less
sensitive to impacting projectile shape and obliquity. It will result in less cumulative damage
to the pressure wall. 
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Protection of satellite against MMOD impact is a very important issue in aerospace


applications. Under MMOD environment, orbiting satellites are exposed to threat by impact
of space debris and micrometeoroid with HVI. However, designing the protection system is
very challenging because of many limitations and considerations such as AO degradation,
and weight. Using composites as the main materials are very promising due to the high
strength-to-weight ratio, and the thermal stability. Several good selections included Kevlar
fibres, Graphite/epoxy and Spectra fibre due to their high strength-to-weight ratio.

The fabrication techniques that widely used for such application are prepreg lay-up
process. This is because prepreg lay-up allows fabrication of high fibre-volume-fraction and
complex parts. The prepreg lay-up included few main processes which are preparation of
prepreg, cutting and arranging the prepregs on a mould, vacuum bagging and autoclave. It is
noted that aerospace applications required extra care and precautious by the workers.

The application consisted of wall system with inner bumper and outer bumper. After
comparison done with conventional aluminium multilayer wall, shows that using laminated
composites as the outer bumper didn¶t offer any protection advantages. In other hand, using
composite materials as the inner bumper able to improve the protection against MMOD
impacts. It is also found that combination of aluminium layers in the wall system able to
improve the overall performances.

As a conclusion, designing a wall system protecting the satellite from MMOD using
composite materials are very challenging. Many research and development and still required
to create better and lighter composite materials for aerospace applications. However, it is
very potential materials as there are limitless combinations and design are available, being
created from time to time.
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1. Space debris - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_debris

2. William P. Schonberg ± ³Protecting Earth-orbiting spacecraft against micro-


meteoroid/orbital debris impact damage using composite structural systems and
materials: An overview´. Sciencedirect.com, USA, 2009

3. Micrometeoroids - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometeoroids

4. Satellite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite

5. P.K.Mallick ± ³Fiber-reinforced composites- Materials, Manufacturing and Design,


3rd edition". CRC press, Taylor & Francis gourp

6. Re: HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO SEND 1 POUND OF MATTER INTO
ORBIT?
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-02/982347189.Eg.r.html

7. Sanjay K. Mazumdar ³Composites manufacturing: materials, product, and process
engineering´ CRC Press 2002

8. Hypervelocity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervelocity

9. New Spectra composite ± composite materials


http://composite.about.com/library/PR/2000/blpolyeitan1.htm

10.Brent Strong ³Prepreg Materials ² Fibers and Resin Exactly Right?´ Brigham Young
University.

11.NASA ± ³STRUCTURAL LAMINATE COMPOSITES FOR SPACE


APPLICATIONS´ PRACTICE NO. PD-ED-1217

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