Testing impact resistance of solar sail material

Started testing impact resistance of solar sail material 0.03mm thick Aluminized Mylar

Dropping a metal ball bearing of 3g from a variety of heights to measure joules of Kinetic Energy that the Aluminized Mylar can take before a breakthrough occurs. The KE of the metal ball was calculated after dropping.

The 0.03mm Aluminized Mylar survived a 22J impact without a breakthrough but with the current set up was not able to drop the ball from high enough to break through the mylar solar sail analogue. Need to experiment more to discover limit.

A spring powered plastic BB gun was also employed which resulted in a breakthrough. The documented bb speed from the gun was 88 m/s resulting in a KE of impact of 90 Joules of energy.

Giving the breakthrough energy required of 0.03mm Aluminized Mylar to be between 22-90J of energy until more testing is completed.