Seong-Hyeon Park, Javier Navarro Laboulais, Pénélope Leyland, Stefano Mischler
DOI Number XXX-YYY-ZZZ
Conference Number HiSST-2022-0401
The thermal degradation of space debris materials generate chemical by-products which may potentially
contribute to atmosphere pollution and trigger adverse chemical reactions for instance for the ozone
layer. Predicting the degree of degradation of space debris is therefore of great concern for space
agencies such as ESA and NASA in order to mitigate population risks and environmental concerns.
With the great concern, the analysis of the re-entry space debris and the estimation of the on-ground
risk are becoming important topics in space science. In this paper, analysis of post shock relaxation
data and by-products generation has been conducted. The results have shown that there are large
differences in between equilibrium post shock assumptions and non-equilibrium assumptions at high
altitudes. The non-equilibrium effects are strong at high altitudes, and consequently the equilibrium
flow underestimates the flow temperatures as well as dissociated atoms, resulting in a difference in
by-products generation, implying the importance of considering the non-equilibrium flow effects on the
re-entry analysis.