Title
Simulation and Optical Analysis of Objects Re-entering Earth’s Atmosphere: On the Detection and Tracking of Meteors and Re-entering Capsules Observed from GEO
Author
Wolfs, Rimsky (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering; TU Delft Astrodynamics & Space Missions; TU Delft Space Engineering)
Contributor
Root, Bart (mentor)
Schrama, Ernst (graduation committee)
Kuiper, Hans (graduation committee)
Degree granting institution
Delft University of Technology
Programme
Aerospace Engineering | Astrodynamics & Space Missions
Date
2019-05-03
Abstract
Meteors have been observed by accident from geostationary orbit (GEO). It is of interest for surveillance, meteor science and the updating of empirical models to know what instruments are needed on a GEO satellite to observe meteors and re-entering capsules in Earth ‘s atmosphere. A re-entry simulation code is written to fill the gap of missing observation data of meteors and re-entry capsules. The simulated re-entry data is used to determine what optical instrument is needed to track or detect these objects. The calculations take into account the reflected sunlight, Earth’s thermal irradiance and atmospheric transparency, and the requirement of a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio and signal-to-background ratio. The investigated meteors, with a minimal absolute magnitude of -2.9, and the two investigated Hayabusa and Stardust re-entry capsules can be tracked from GEO for at least 3 consecutive observations with a sub 1 meter aperture diameter optical instrument. A 2 to 5 second tracking time of the investigated meteors requires aperture diameters between 0.1 m and 0.87 m. For 20 second tracking of the re-entry capsules a 0.1 m aperture diameter is needed, which increases to 0.27 m when tracking for 50 seconds. To observe the whole Earth multiple optical instruments would be needed on one GEO satellite. This requires in most cases less than 1 cubic meter of space on the satellite.
Subject
Meteor
Capsule
Re-entry
Optical instruments
Geostationary
Simulation
Detection
Tracking
meteoroids
Stardust
Hayabusa
Chelyabinsk
Aperture diameter
Focal length
Observation
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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2b92ae03-4447-4250-922d-b09b03c0c26a
Embargo date
2024-04-15
Part of collection
Student theses
Document type
master thesis
Rights
© 2019 Rimsky Wolfs