MICROMETEOROIDS AND SPACE DEBRIS - THE EURECA POSTFLIGHT ANALYSIS

The retrieval of Eureca has given the Agency a rare opportunity to stu dy the fluxes and resulting effects of meteoroid and space-debris impa cts on exposed spacecraft surfaces in Low Earth Orbit (LEG). With its fixed Sun-pointing attitude, large areas of identical surface material s, and 1992-1993 exposure period, Eureca has provided impact data that are complementary to those from LDEF. The detailed optical survey of all outer Eureca surfaces, which was the first main task of the impact analysis, has now been completed.