The Whipple shield or Whipple bumper is a type of spaced armor shielding, invented by Fred Whipple, designed to protect crewed and uncrewed spacecraft from hypervelocity collisions with micrometeoroids and orbital debris. Relative velocities of objects in earth orbit can range as high as 18 kilometers per second (11.2 miles per second), meaning even very small objects can damage spacecraft.
The Whipple shield or Whipple bumper is a type of spaced armor shielding, invented by Fred Whipple, designed to protect crewed and uncrewed spacecraft from hypervelocity collisions with micrometeoroids and orbital debris. Relative velocities of objects in earth orbit can range as high as 18 kilometers per second (11.2 miles per second), meaning even very small objects can damage spacecraft.
Source: Wikipedia "Whipple shield" · CC BY-SA 4.0
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