This is a native 2D side-on counterpart to the 3D Whipple shield simulator: the same ballistic-limit model, but drawn as a cross-section you view from the side. A Whipple shield (Fred Whipple, 1947 — flown on every crewed spacecraft since, including the ISS) protects a pressure hull from millimetre-sized orbital debris and micrometeoroids not by stopping the impactor, but by shattering it before it arrives. A thin outer bumper plate, spaced a gap away from the real structural wall, turns a hypervelocity impact into an expanding wedge of fragments. The same kinetic energy then lands on the rear wall spread over a much wider footprint — often the difference between a scratch and a hole.
KE = ½ m v² (impactor kinetic energy)
θ(v) ≈ clamp(10° + 2.2°·(v_km/s − 3), 8°, 32°) (debris-cone half-angle, shield ON)
R_footprint = r_proj + S·tan(θ) (S = bumper–wall standoff)
σ = KE / (π R_footprint²) (areal energy density reaching the wall)
Wall survives if σ ≤ k · t_wall (thicker rear wall ⇒ higher capacity)
The side view draws the cone spread geometrically to scale against the standoff gap, so the wedge you see widening between bumper and wall is the same tan(θ) relationship the equation above uses — not just a decorative animation.
- Diameter / velocity — set the size and speed of the incoming micrometeoroid or debris fragment.
- Standoff — the gap between bumper and hull; more gap gives the debris cloud more room to spread before it arrives.
- Wall thickness — how much structural aluminium the rear wall has to absorb the spread-out impact.
- Whipple bumper ON/OFF — toggle it off to see the same projectile hit a single unshielded wall directly: the energy lands in a crater barely bigger than the projectile itself, and even small debris usually breaches.
Real-world relevance: the ISS's Whipple-type shielding lets a few millimetres of spaced aluminium (plus stuffed Kevlar/Nextel layers in the newer "stuffed Whipple" variant) stop debris that would otherwise need many centimetres of solid armour — armour heavy enough to make the station unlaunchable.