Hypervelocity

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Hypervelocity

The term hypervelocity usually refers to a very high velocity

Velocity

In physics, velocity is defined as the Derivative of Position vector. It is a vector physical quantity; both speed and direction are required to define it....
, approximately over 3,000 meters per second

Metre per second

Metre per second is an SI derived unit of both speed and velocity , defined by distance in metres divided by time in seconds.This is the main unit of speed....
(6,700 mph, 11,000 km/h, 10,000 ft/s, or Mach

Mach number

Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance. It is commonly used to represent an object's speed, when it is travelling at the speed of sound....
8.8). In particular, it refers to velocities so high that the strength of materials upon impact is very small compared to inertia

Inertia

File:192447main 017 law of inertia.oggInertia is the resistance of an object to a change in its state of motion. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the Motion of matter and how it is affected by applied forces....
l stresses.

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The term hypervelocity usually refers to a very high velocity

Velocity

Metre per second

Mach number

Inertia

Metal

In chemistry, a metal is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions , and form metallic bonds between other metal atoms and ionic bonds between nonmetal atoms....
s behave like fluid

Fluid

A fluid is defined as a substance that continually deforms under an applied shear stress. All liquids and all gases are fluids. Fluids are a subset of the Phase and include liquids, gas, Plasma physics and, to some extent, plasticity ....
s under hypervelocity impact. Extreme hypervelocity results in vaporization of the impactor

Impact force

An impact force is a high force or Shock applied over a short time period. Such a force or acceleration can sometimes have a greater effect than a lower force applied over a proportionally longer time period....
and target. For structural metals, hypervelocity is generally considered to be over 2,500 m/s (5,600 mph, 9,000 km/h, 8,200 ft/s, or Mach 7.3). Meteorite

Meteorite

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives an impact with the Earth's surface. While in space it is called a meteoroid....
crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with larger body....
s are also examples of hypervelocity impact.

Hypervelocity tends to refer to velocities in the range of a few kilometers per second

Second

The second , sometimes abbreviated sec., is the name of a units of measurement of time, and is the International System of Units SI base unit of time....
to some tens of kilometers per second. It is especially relevant to the field of space exploration

Space exploration

Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
and military use of space, where hypervelocity impacts (e.g. by space debris

Space debris

Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by humans, and that no longer serve any useful purpose....
or an attacking projectile

Projectile

A projectile is any object propelled through space by the exertion of a force, which ceases after launch. In a general sense, even a Football or baseball may be considered a projectile....
) can result in anything from minor component degradation to the complete destruction of a spacecraft

Spacecraft

A spacecraft is a Craft or machine designed for spaceflight. On a sub-orbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters outer space then returns to the Earth....
or missile. The impactor, as well as the surface it hits, can undergo temporary liquefaction

Liquefaction

Liquefaction may refer to:* Soil liquefaction, the process by which sediments become suspended* Liquefaction of gases in physics, chemistry, and thermal engineering...
. The impact process can generate plasma

Plasma (physics)

In physics and chemistry, plasma is a partially ionized gas, in which a certain proportion of electrons are free rather than being bound to an atom or molecule....
discharges, which can interfere with spacecraft electronics.

Hypervelocity usually occurs during meteor shower

Meteor shower

Meteor showers, some of which are known as "meteor storms" , "meteor outbursts,"or "star storm are celestial events in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the sky....
s and deep space reentries, as carried out during the Zond

Zond program

Zond was the name given to two series of Soviet Union unmanned space missions undertaken from 1964 to 1970 to gather information about nearby planets and to test spacecraft....
, Apollo

Project Apollo

The Apollo program was a human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA during the years 1961?1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions....
and Luna

Luna programme

The Luna programme , occasionally called Lunik or Lunnik, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976....
programs. Given the intrinsic unpredictability of the timing and trajectories of meteors, space capsules are prime data gathering opportunities for the study of thermal protection materials at hypervelocity (in this context, hypervelocity is defined as greater than escape velocity

Escape velocity

In physics, escape velocity is the speed where the kinetic energy of an object is equal to the magnitude of its gravitational potential energy, as calculated by the equation,...
). Given the rarity of such observation opportunities since the 1970s, the Genesis

Genesis (spacecraft)

The Genesis spacecraft was the first ever attempt to collect a sample of solar wind, and the first "sample return mission" to return from beyond the orbit of the Moon....
and the recent Stardust

Stardust (spacecraft)

Stardust is an United States interplanetary mission of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose primary purpose was to investigate the makeup of the comet Comet Wild 2 and its coma ....
Sample Return Capsule (SRC) reentries as well as the upcoming Hayabusa

Hayabusa

is an unmanned space mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to Sample return mission from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis....
SRC reentry have spawned observation campaigns, most notably at NASA Ames Research Center

NASA Ames Research Center

NASA Ames Research Center is a NASA facility located at Moffett Federal Airfield, which covers at the borders of the cities of Mountain View, California and Sunnyvale, California in California....
.

Hypervelocity collision

Collision

A collision is an isolated event in which two or more bodies exert relatively strong forces on each other for a relatively short time....
s can be studied by examining the results of naturally-occurring collisions (between micrometeorites

Micrometeoroid

A micrometeoroid is a tiny meteoroid; a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram. A micrometeor or micrometeorite is such a particle that enters the Earth's atmosphere or falls to Earth....
and spacecraft, or between meteorites and planetary bodies), or they may be performed in laboratories. Currently the primary tool for laboratory experiments is a light gas gun

Light gas gun

The light gas gun is an apparatus for physics experiments, a highly specialized gun designed to generate very high velocities. It is usually used to study high speed impact phenomena , such as the formation of impact craters by meteorites or the erosion of materials by micrometeoroids....
, but some experiments have used linear motor

Linear motor

A linear motor or linear induction motor is essentially a multi-phase alternating current electric motor that has had its stator "unrolled" so that instead of producing a torque it produces a linear force along its length....
s to accelerate projectiles to hypervelocity.

The properties of metals under hypervelocity have been integrated with weapons, such as explosively formed penetrator

Explosively Formed Penetrator

An explosively formed penetrator , also known as an explosively formed projectile, a self-forging warhead, or a self-forging fragment, is a special type of shaped charge designed to penetrate armour effectively at stand-off distances....
. The vaporization upon impact and liquefaction of surfaces allow metal projectiles formed under hypervelocity forces to penetrate vehicle armor better than conventional bullets.

The White Sands Test Facility

White Sands Test Facility

White Sands Test Facility is a rocket engine test facility and a resource for testing and evaluating potentially hazardous materials, space flight components, and rocket propulsion systems....
is a NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
facility that performs, among other tests, hypervelocity impact experiments to study the effect of micrometeorite and orbital junk impacts on spacecraft, so that improved protection measures can be taken for its space missions. The facility uses two-stage light gas gun

Light gas gun

Hypervelocity

See also