Demonstration of survivable space penetrator

P. Church; W. Huntington-Thresher; A. Bruce; N. Penny; A. Smith; R. Gowan

doi:doi:10.1051/dymat/2009239

All issues

Volume 2 (2009)

10.1051/dymat/2009239

Abstract

Issue		DYMAT 2009 Volume 2, 2009 DYMAT 2009 - 9th International Conference on the Mechanical and Physical Behaviour of Materials under Dynamic Loading


Page(s)		1693 - 1698
Section		Numerical Simulations
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1051/dymat/2009239
Published online		15 September 2009

DYMAT 2009 (2009) 1693-1698
DOI: 10.1051/dymat/2009239

Demonstration of survivable space penetrator

P. Church¹, W. Huntington-Thresher¹, A. Bruce¹, N. Penny¹, A. Smith² and R. Gowan²

¹ QinetiQ, Fort Halstead, Sevenoaks, Kent TN14 7BP, UK
² Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Holmbury St Mary, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK

Published online: 15 September 2009

Abstract
MoonLITE is a proposed UK space mission to the moon where the basic premise is to deploy four instrumented penetrators, one each on the near-side, far-side and at the poles of the moon, with an impact velocity of approximately 300 m/s. This paper describes the down selection process using simulations to design a survivable penetrator shell. The design was trialed on the MoD owned rocket test track at Pendine. The penetrator was successfully recovered intact with little damage as predicted in the simulations.