LAD-C: A Large Area Cosmic Dust and Orbital Debris Collector on the International Space Station

A 10 m^2 aerogel and acoustic sensor system has been under development by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) with main collaboration from the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office at Johnson Space Center. This Large Area Debris Collector (LAD-C) is tentatively scheduled to be deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) on the International Space Station (ISS) in late 2007. The system will be retrieved, after one to two years of data and sample collection, for post-flight analysis. In addition to cosmic dust and orbital debris sample return, the acoustic sensors will record impact characteristics for potential orbit determination of some of the collected samples. Source identification based on their dynamical signatures may be possible. The LAD-C science return will benefit orbital debris, cosmic dust, and satellite safety communities. This paper presents an overview of the mission objectives, basic configuration, deployment consideration, and science return of the experiment.