Hypervelocity impact experiments on aerogel dust collector

Laboratory hypervelocity impact experiments were conducted to verify the pe rformance of aerogel dust collectors used for gathering meteoroids and spac e debris in the near-Earth environment and to derive the relationships of v arious parameters characterizing the projectile with morphology of tracks l eft by the penetrating projectile in the aerogel collector pad. Silica aero gel collectors of 0.03 g/cm(3) density were impacted at velocities ranging from 1 to 14 km/s with projectiles of aluminum oxide, olivine, or soda-lime glass, with diameters ranging from 10 to 400 mu m. At impact velocities be low 6 km/s the projectiles were captured without fragmentation by the aerog el collector and, in many instances, without complete ablation even at 12 k m/s. The shapes and dimensions of the penetration tracks left in the aeroge l collector were correlated with the impact parameters, and the results per mitted derivation of a series of equations relating the track dimensions to incoming projectile size, impact energy, and other projectile parameters. A simplified model, similar to meteor-entry phenomena, was used to predict the trends in experimental penetration track lengths and the diameters of c aptured projectiles.