Preliminary estimation of the footprint and survivability of the Chelyabinsk Meteor fragments

Abstract

There are several differences between the planetary entry of space vehicles and that of asteroids. In this work we do investigate the applicability of classical methods and approaches developed for debris analysis to asteroid entry. In particular, the in-house DEBRIS tool, which has been designed and developed to address the debris problem for uncontrolled re-entry objects, is used here to predict the survivability and the ground footprint of asteroid fragments. The results obtained for the Chelyabinsk event are presented as test case. A comparison with the current available information is provided, proving the validity of the proposed approach.