自由振荡激光天基清扫空间碎片机理研究

Mechanism study of removing space debris with space-based free running laser

  • 摘要: 在绕地轨道上残留着大量的空间碎片,这些人类航天活动造成的太空污染已经严重威胁到太空飞行器的安全。其中,直径在1~10 cm之间的碎片具有致命的潜在危害,是急需解决的麻烦。激光清扫空间碎片也愈来愈引起科学领域的关注,其中天基脉冲激光是清扫这类小型空间碎片的有效技术途径之一。由于现有方案中的天基超短脉冲、超大能量、紧凑可靠的激光器在工程上难以实现,笔者创新提出了自由振荡脉冲激光天基清扫空间碎片的思想与方案。通过模拟分析发现自由振荡激光的脉冲持续时间是其产生大冲量的优势,从机理和效应上与纳秒激光进行了对比,证明了“热金属蒸气反喷”比“等离子反喷”的冲量增量与能量利用率更高。建立了激光消融金属的物理模型,模拟分析得到了当激光功率密度大于5×106 W/cm2时,金属液滴的直径一般不大于60 μm的结果,说明了激光清扫空间碎片过程中相伴产生的“微碎片”不会有“次生危害效应”,反而能在一定程度上加速碎片清扫。该文为自由振荡激光器在天基清扫碎片的领域应用奠定了基础。

     

    Abstract: There are a great amount of space debris discarded in the orbits around earth. This pollution in space caused by people's spaceflight has threatened the space assets seriously. Some of the debris with the diameter ranging from 1 to 10 cm, should be given priority treatment for processing, due to the latent but fatal threat they induced. Laser space debris removal is becoming an absorbing topic in the realm of science. Among the mechanisms presented, space-based pulsed laser is one of the effective method to eliminate these small debris. Due to the limitation of technics, the short-pulsewidth, great-energy, compact-structure and reliable lasers claimed in the plans reported were hard to be achieved. A creative debris-removing method using space-based free running pulsed laser was proposed. The long pulse duration of the laser advantaged the impulse generation was revealed in a numerical analysis. Comparing with nanosecond pulsewidth laser, both in theory and experiment, "hot metal vapor ejection" was proved to be better than "plasma ejection" at impulse increment and energy utilization. Analyzing with a laser-melting-metal model proposed, the diameter of metal drops ejected were calculated less than 60 μm in general, with the laser power density greater than 5×106 W/cm2. The result demonstrated that the "micro pieces" accompanying the ejection were unable to cause "secondary threat", but accelerated the debris removing in some degree. The study lays the foundation for the application of space-based free running laser in space debris removal.

     

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