Atomic-6 debuts Space Armor™ tiles to guard important communications—spacecraft—and astronauts from orbital particles – SatNews

Atomic-6, a number one producer of superior mobility composites, has launched a revolutionary safety product for spacecraft and astronauts—Space Armor™ tiles.

Space Armor™ tiles are the primary RF (radio frequency)-permeable orbital particles protect, resisting affect whereas permitting mission-critical radio communications to and from the satellite tv for pc it’s defending. In one other world’s first, Space Armor™ tiles are fragmentation resistant – defending spacecraft from particles with out creating dangerous secondary particles that endangers different satellites. With Space Armor™ tiles, out there now for presidency and industrial satellites, Atomic-6 protects the way forward for human area exercise and establishes a brand new normal for accountable area stewardship.

Satellites and astronauts are continually threatened by tens of millions of untrackable, hypervelocity particles in orbit. Such as a unfastened pebble hitting your windshield on the freeway, orbital particles can strike at any time to do vital harm to spacecraft. Unlike the freeway pebble, these particles journey at velocities of better than 7 kilometers per second, practically 16,000 miles per hour, making them explode violently on affect: penetrating gasoline tanks, area fits, and tearing aside batteries and buildings alike. With Space Armor™ tiles, spacecraft and the astronauts who fly them now have an unprecedented resolution to guard towards the rising risk of area particles.

Though ballistic area “Whipple shields” have existed because the 1950’s, their historically metallic make-up is prohibitively heavy, blocks very important radio alerts, and, when impacted, can usually create extra particles than it stops. Those very metallic layers that forestall penetration of undesirable orbital particles additionally forestall penetration of significant RF communications. For the primary time on this planet, Atomic-6 demonstrated Space Armor™ tiles which can be each orbital particles shielding and RF-permeable, enabling hypervelocity affect safety for communications gadgets.

For many years, Whipple shields have been the business normal “band-aid” for mitigating orbital particles impacts, however with one deadly flaw: their metallic faces fragment when hit. This fragmentation ejects dangerous secondary particles again into area, which may go on to strike different satellites or astronauts at hypervelocity speeds. In this manner, metallic shielding will increase the particles inhabitants and threat of future collisions for everybody in orbit, exacerbating a phenomenon generally known as “The Kessler Syndrome.”

Atomic-6 Space Armor™ tiles are lighter and thinner than conventional Whipple shields, straightforward to put in, and mitigates the creation of dangerous particles. As seen on this side-by-side demonstration towards aluminum, Space Armor™ tiles efficiently cease a >7km/s projectile, producing just about no byproducts. The aluminum equal protect, however, creates fragments bigger than the preliminary projectile, and spalling particles behind the purpose of affect, which might harm the system it’s meant to guard.

Atomic-6 has developed two scalable safety ranges in both RF-permeable or RF-blocking configurations:

• Space Armor™ Lite: Withstands particles impacts as much as 3mm, which accounts for all untrackable particles and over 90% of all Low Earth Orbit (LEO) particles.
• Space Armor™ Max: Built for probably the most excessive circumstances, it resists impacts as much as 12.5mm, rated for human area station safety.

Both variants reduce shielding mass, stowage quantity, post-impact ejecta, and general mission threat—a important benefit in each manned and unmanned missions. Space Armor tiles at the moment are out there.

This is an enormous deal. We made the primary radomes that may cease orbital particles,” mentioned Trevor Smith, CEO, Atomic-6. “You don’t have to sacrifice communications to protect your spacecraft anymore. This little composite tile preserves mission-critical functions, thereby protecting spacecraft, space stations, and people in orbit from increasingly prevalent, yet invisible threats.”