The orbital distribution and dynamics of solid rocket motor particle clouds for an implementation into the master debris model

In its current 1997 release version the MASTER space debris model considers orbital fragmentations to be the main source for the generation of space debris, while other sources are not taken into account. For this reason, the actual reference population is dominated by particles originating from 127 historical fragmentation events, mainly explosions. Since these explosion fragments can not account for aluminum oxide particles or paint materials identified in the course of the chemical analysis of impact crater residuals, MASTER currently is upgraded to cover additional source terms in its population generation module. Besides micro debris sources like surface degradation or impact ejecta, generation mechanisms for larger scale particles like NaK droplets will be considered in the next MASTER release. Additionally, orbital firings of Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs) as a contributor to both size regimes are planned to be included. To implement all these additional source terms, a variety of sub-models reflecting the generation processes had to be derived. In this context, the diversity of Al2O3 dust and slag objects exhausted from SRM burns in terms of basic generation characteristics as well as in orbital dynamics of the particle cloud has been reviewed and results documenting the influence of this source on the debris environment are presented.