Meteoroid ablation simulations with ESA’s SCARAB software
Maximilian Vovk, Detlef Koschny, Michael Frühauf, Christian Gscheidle, Urs Hugentobler, Valentin Heumann, Tobias Lips, Bent Fritsche, Maximilian Maigler, Valentina Pessina, Jiří Šilha, Juraj Tóth, Veronika Pazderová, Pavol Matlovič
Planetary and Space Science
In Press, Journal Pre-proof, Available online 26 October 2023
“We computed the ablation of different spherical artificial meteoroids entering from a low-Earth orbit in the context of the AllBert EinStein mission. AllBert EinStein is intended to reenter spheres of known size and material into the atmosphere to determine the percentage of kinetic energy converted to light. This paper models the reentry to predict magnitude curves for the different initial conditions. An emphasis is placed on determining the difference between the single body ablation model and ESA’s reentry software SCARAB. It is also shown how the CFD simulations can work in synergy with SCARAB results to increase detail in the airflow regime around. Our study shows that with few fixes the meteor method replicates with good accuracy the SCARAB results for different artificial meteoroids, showing the validity of both tools.”
