NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) is involved in several research projects with institutions located throughout North America. The underlining goal of these projects is to gain a better understanding of the meteoroid environment so that MEO environment models can be improved.


All-Sky Fireball Network


The MEO operates two all-sky camera systems in the southeastern United States for the detection of bright meteors and fireballs. The systems, designed by collaborators at the University of Western Ontario, are designed to measure meteor speeds and orbits.

The goals of this project include determining the velocity distributions for bright meteors as a function of mass and measuring the meteor shower activity in this mass range. The MEO will establish two more camera systems in the near future.





Meteor Measurements Program


The MEO is working together in cooperation with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lincoln Laboratories with the objective of determining meteoroid masses, orbits, ballistic coefficients, and densities. The ALTAIR radar on Kwajalein Atoll will be used to make approximately 25 hours of observations of sporadic and shower meteoroids simultaneously at VHF and UHF.

The goals of this MEO program are as follows:

• Determine a realistic density distribution and add it to the NASA MSFC Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM).
• Investigate the meteoroid velocity distribution at small masses.
• Understand the biases in meteor observations produced by high power systems, like ALTAIR, and those of the meteor patrol radars, such as the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar.

Co-Located Automated Meteor Station and Cooperative Agreement with UWO


The MEO is working together in cooperation with the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in order to remove biases in the meteor data. This will be done by co-locating automated meteor station cameras and the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR), enabling simultaneous radar and optical observations. The properties of those meteors seen by both instruments will be determined.

UWO also provides daily meteoroid flux measurements to the MEO during Space Shuttle missions.





Hypervelocity Impact Tests


The MEO and colleagues from Brown University have conducted a series of hypervelocity impact experiments at the NASA Ames Vertical Gun Range (AVGR) in order to better determine luminous efficiency estimates. It is necessary to determine this relationship between impact flash brightness and impactor kinetic energy so that a model of the hypervelocity ejecta from large impacts can be developed for use in lunar vehicle and spacesuit design.

Using the AVGR, the MEO conducted 11 successful shots: quarter-inch diameter Pyrex projectiles were shot into a finely ground pumice target at velocities ranging from 2.5 to nearly 5.5 km/sec, at impact angles of 30°, 45°, and 90°. The MEO stationed 5 cameras at various viewpoints around the target vacuum chamber, taking video and spectral data of the impact flash created when the projectile hit the target. The luminous efficiency determined will be used to estimate the energy and thus the size of meteoroids impacting the moon from the flashes detected at the NASA MSFC Automated Lunar and Meteor Observatory (ALAMO).

A more elaborate series of hypervelocity gun experiments is planned. This will not only enable more luminous efficiency measurements, but also allow for the study of the cratering process in detail. Sizes and trajectories of the ejecta produced by the experimental craters will be recorded and this data used to calibrate sophisticated hydrocodes that will be used to model impacts of large meteoroids on the moon and the resulting ejecta field. These calculations will then form the basis of a realistic assessment of the hazard posed by lunar cratering events.

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