NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) 3 and its ability to replicate spacecraft impact rates

2019/09/12 by Althea V. Moorhead, Moorhead, Althea V., Aaron Kingery +3 · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Planetary Science and Exploration #Space Satellite Systems and Control

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.05947

openalex publication_date 2019/09/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Meteoroids pose one of the largest risks to spacecraft outside of low Earth orbit. In order to correctly predict the rate at which meteoroids impact and damage spacecraft, environment models must describe the mass, directionality, velocity, and density distributions of meteoroids. NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) is one such model; MEM 3 is an updated version of the code that better captures the correlation between directionality and velocity and incorporates a bulk density distribution. This paper describes MEM 3 and compares its predictions with the rate of large particle impacts seen on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) and the Pegasus II and III satellites.

Cited by

• Modeling the meteoroid environment far from the ecliptic plane
• A Statistical Approach to Quantifying Uncertainty in Meteoroid Physical Properties

Related

• Modeling the meteoroid environment far from the ecliptic plane
• Interstellar Dust Module for the ESA Meteoroid Model
• The threshold at which a meteor shower becomes hazardous to spacecraft
• The meteoroid hazard for space navigation
• A Near-Earth Object Model Calibrated to Earth Impactors