Measurements of cosmic dust and micro-debris in GEO Original Research Article

The Cosmic Dust/Space Debris impact detector GORID has now collected data for more than 3 years from its geostationary location at 80° East. The aperture size is 0.1 m2 and the instrument is capable of detecting particles with a mass down to about 10−14 g (velocity dependent). The registered number of likely impact events per day ranged from 0 to more than 40 with an average around 2 per day. Many impacts occurred clustered in time and these clustered events sometimes reappeared for one or more days. It is suggested that these clustered events result from impacts of clouds of exhaust particles from the firing of solid rocket motors (SRM). For the specific case of an insertion burn into geostationary orbit on 10th June 1998 a detailed simulation of the SRM cloud evolution and expected impacts on GORID is performed. The results of this analysis are consistent with GORID measurements 11 days after the thruster firing.