Ricerc@Sapienza

Recently, the focus of Space Research has been set both on scientific and commercial fields. When planning a mission in space, it is necessary take into account the environment in which the instrumentations and the satellite that carries them will go to work. About 25% of operating anomalies are in fact due to the space environment that affects the control and management systems of the spacecraft and of the instrument.

The growing quantity of debris in Earth orbit poses a danger to users of the orbital environment, such as spacecraft. It also increases the risk that humans or manmade structures could be impacted when objects reenter Earth's atmosphere. During the design of a spacecraft, a requirement may be specified for the surviv-ability of the spacecraft against Meteoroid / Orbital Debris (M/OD) impacts throughout the mission; further-more, the structure of a spacecraft is designed to insure its integrity during the launch and, if it is reusable, during descent, re-entry and landing.