Corrugation stuffed shield for spacecraft and its performance

A corrugation stuffed shield system protecting spacecrafts against meteoroid and orbital debris (M/OD) is presented. The semi-empirical ballistic limit equations (BLEs) defining the protection capability of the shield system are given, and the shielding performance is also discussed. The corrugation stuffed shield (CSS) is more effective than stuffed Whipple shield for M/OD protection, and its shielding performance will be improved significantly as increasing the impact angle. Orbital debris up to 1 cm in diameter can be shielded effectively as increasing the impact angle to 25° at the corrugated angle of 30°. The results are significant to spacecraft design.