Measuring Demisability of Bulk Metallic Glasses for Potential Satellite Applications through Ablation Experiments

Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) exhibit attractive properties for spacecraft applications. When low Earth‐orbiting satellites reenter the atmosphere at end of mission, a measure to mitigate the generation of space debris, operators must limit the number of satellite components that reach the ground to ensure public safety. Inductively coupled plasma using an argon/air mixture to simulate reentry conditions is used to study ablation of BMG and conventional spacecraft alloys. Differential scanning calorimetry is used to determine the thermal properties of the alloys. BMGs are shown to ablate similarly to aluminum alloys (Al7075) and dramatically faster than titanium alloys (Ti‐6Al‐4V).