Novel space environments and issues

Co-organised with French space agency CNES French aerospace lab Onera, and the Integrity Testing Laboratory Canada, ISMSE-13/ICPMSE-15 on 18-23 September marked the first time that the international space materials engineering community had gathered in person for four years, joined by participants from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) as well as national space agencies.

ESA materials engineer and co-organiser Adrian Tighe explains: “In one form or another this event has been running for four decades now, where we get together to discuss many of the problems the space sector is currently grappling with in terms of the space environment and its effect on materials.

“So as well as the dust topic, we saw for instance a focus on issues arising with satellites flying really close to Earth – at so-called ‘Very Low Earth Orbit’ altitudes – where highly erosive atomic oxygen encountered at the top of the atmosphere could be an issue for planned constellations as well as the challenge of simulating orbital debris damage at a materials level, which is proving an increasingly significant factor in highly-trafficked orbits.