A COMPARISON OF HAYSTACK RADAR MEASUREMENTS WITH EVOLVE DEBRIS ENVIRONMENT PREDICTIONS
- Paper ID
IAF-95-IAA-6.3.08
- author
- company
LOCKHEED MARTIN ENGINEERING & SCIENCES CO.
- country
U.S.A.
- year
1995
- abstract
Haystack radar data are an important new source of information on the orbital debris environment. Although orbital debris environment models have, for many years, predicted the environment for debris sizes ranging from 1 mm to 10 cm, until the Haystack data acquisition began there was no systematic source of data for this size range and model results could not be directly substantiated. This paper will compare the Haystack data with debris environment predictions made by the EVOLVE program. The data are verifying some model predictions, while indicating areas where existing models need to be improved. The data have established the importance of breakups as a primary source of debris to sizes below 1 cm but also indicated the presence of other debris sources. Data taken by Haystack in the zenith staring mode have established limits on the breakup velocity distribution for explosions; these data also provide information on debris to sizes of roughly 4 mm. Data taken by Haystack at low elevation angle give information on the inclination and, less dramatically, the eccentricity distribution; these data indicate that sources other than breakups must also be contributing to the environment. The evidence of debris streams in the Haystack data can be accounted for by breakups; however, other sources could also contribute. One of the important innovative features of the Haystack project was to use statistical arguments to develop a debris size distribution. The measured distributions will be compared to predictions made by EVOLVE. While measurements are in reasonable agreement with the model, it is probably important to develop new breakup models that allow for irregular shaped debris, both to compare with Haystack radar data and to account for distributions in ballistic coefiBcient for a given debris mass.