UniversidaddeCádiz

Isabel López and Alexander Franco, from the School of Engineering, have carried out a comparative study of the catastrophic failures that can affect two types of satellites

Researchers at the University of Cadiz, belonging to the Department of Engineering in Automation, Electronics, Architecture and Computer Networks and attached to the School of Engineering (ESI), have conducted a comparative study focused on the possible catastrophic failures, arising from radiation or collision with space debris, which may affect two types of satellites, specifically, the so-called cubesats and microsats.

This work, which has been published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports – Nature, aims to analyze, on the one hand, the impact of micrometeoroids or space debris on the destruction of a satellite, and on the other hand, how cosmic rays, which are sources of ionizing radiation, affect these same devices; something that will serve to guide the design and operation of future spacecraft. “We have worked on quantifying the probability of catastrophic collision of space debris compared to catastrophic failure due to radiation effects for the same space satellite, orbit and mission duration. Our purpose is to discover whether the probability of catastrophic failure due to debris collision over the mission period is less than, equal to, or greater than the probability of catastrophic failure due to radiation effects,” as the researchers explain in the scientific publication.