Contamination is always troublesome in spacecraft development, but it has yet to be investigated because outgassing, transportation, deposition, and re-emission largely depend on spacecraft design. Designing spacecraft requires an accurate estimate of contaminant emission and deposition. Particularly for today’s sophisticated spacecraft, analytical tools would be indispensable—but current simulations need to be improved. Our study addresses the first phase in the occurrence of contamination: improving the outgassing model. We focused on diffusion-limited phenomena because the diffusion rate of outgassing molecules in materials is thought to be much slower than their desorption rate at the surface. A new outgassing test method and analytical procedure was originally devised for extracting the parameters of the diffusion model. In comparing the desorption and diffusion models, we developed a model for the emission of outgassing molecules based on the diffusion theory and updated some functions of Japan’s Spacecraft Induced Contamination Environment analysis software (J-SPICE). From this, we developed J-SPICE2 and installed the diffusion model to the software for calculating outgassing behavior.
Molecular contamination phenomena depend on temperature. For example, the morphology of a contaminant can change from a uniform film to droplets. The authors believe that the surface morphology of thin-film contamination affects optical transmittance and reflectance of camera lenses and other sensors, so it is important to gain a better understanding of the morphology of contamination. The authors investigated a simple measurement technique to determine molecular contamination morphology in a vacuum and at low temperatures using a CMOS camera sensor chip. The CMOS camera operates down to −60°C, which covers our range of interest (i.e., from −60°C to room temperature). Furthermore, using a combination of the camera sensor and the optical measurement setup in a vacuum chamber, the morphology and optical transmittance were measured simultaneously. The advantages of the technique are that the equipment is inexpensive and can be installed in many chambers now in use.
Space instruments such as solar arrays, radiators, or optics can be strongly impacted by molecular contaminants outgassed from spacecraft materials. For optics, transmittance and reflectance performances could indeed be modified by the deposit of contaminants. We report the transmittance measurements and predictions in the ultraviolet–visible–near-infrared range of contaminated optics from the outgassing of a mixture of two common materials used in space industry: EC2216 material (epoxy compound) and RTVS691 material (silicone compound). The Swanepoel model, commonly used in many fields, was employed for the first time in such conditions to easily and quickly predict transmittance. Transmittance was fully recovered at 20°C; a decontamination plan could be based on heating at this temperature at least during a duration depending on the silicone/epoxy contaminants layer thickness.
Contamination outgassed from spacecraft's materials can degrade optical devices in orbit. Therefore, solving the contamination problem is important because it in uences the success of spacecraft missions. In this study, methyl red (MR) and oleamide were decomposed in vacuum by TiO2 photocatalyst. Absorbance spectra, mass decrease and GC/MS were measured after and before decomposition. In vacuum, TiO2 could decompose MR to intermediate products, whereas it could not decompose the intermediate products to volatile substances because TiO2 cannot open benzene rings of the intermediate products. On the other hand, TiO2 could decompose oleamide to volatile substances even in vacuum. However, decomposition by TiO2 stopped after a certain period of time in vacuum. The decrease in mass for oleamide by photocatalytic reaction in vacuum was enough compared to standard molecular contamination levels.
KEYWORDS: Temperature metrology, Contamination analysis, Sensors, Contamination, Space operations, Cryogenics, Adhesives, Model-based design, Control systems, Time metrology
Outgassing rate measurement, or dynamic outgassing test, is used to obtain outgassing properties of materials, i.e., Total Mass Loss, “TML,” and Collected Volatile Condensed Mass, “CVCM.” The properties are used as input parameters for executing contamination analysis, e.g., calculating a prediction of deposition mass on a surface in a spacecraft caused by outgassed substances from contaminant sources onboard. It is likely that results obtained by such calculations are affected by the input parameters. Thus, it is important to get a sufficient experimental data set of outgassing rate measurements for extract good outgassing parameters of materials for calculation. As specified in the standard, ASTM E 1559, TML is measured by a QCM sensor kept at cryogenic temperature; CVCMs are measured at certain temperatures. In the present work, the authors propose a new experimental procedure to obtain more precise VCMs from one run of the current test time with the present equipment. That is, two of four CQCMs in the equipment control the temperature to cool step-by-step during the test run. It is expected that the deposition rate, that is sticking coefficient, with respect to temperature could be discovered. As a result, the sticking coefficient can be obtained directly between -50 and 50 degrees C with 5 degrees C step. It looks like the method could be used as an improved procedure for outgassing rate measurement. The present experiment also specified some issues of the new procedure. It will be considered in future work.
We have focused on photocatalytic materials to solve contamination problem for spacecraft. We have fabricated TiO2 thin films and measured decomposition rates of methyl orange (MO) and dioctyl phthalate (DOP) in vacuum by TiO2 thin films as a photocatalyst. From XRD results, fabricated TiO2 thin films have anatase-type crystal structure, which is known to have stronger decomposition activities than rutile-type TiO2. The TiO2 thin films we made were shown to decompose methylene blue (MB) solution, which means that the TiO2 thin films have general photocatalystic activity in atmosphere. In decomposition of MO in atmosphere and vacuum, TiO2 shows photocatalytic activity even in vacuum although the decomposition rate in vacuum is slower than that in atmosphere. In decomposition of DOP in vacuum, DOP was effused from an effusion cell in vacuum chamber and was deposited on a TiO2 thin film using the in-situ measurement apparatus at Tsukuba Space Center, JAXA. Transmission spectra of DOP on TiO2 thin films after UV irradiation were measured to estimate decomposition rate from absorbance of DOP. The results show that TiO2 thin films can decompose DOP even in vacuum. Moreover, H2O can promote the decomposition of DOP. In order to use photocatalyst materials in vacuum for long time, the studies on the durability of photocatalystic activity of TiO2 in vacuum and the effects of O2 and H2O are necessary in the future.
Molecular contaminants outgassed from organic materials used for the spacecraft degrade the performance of optical surfaces of spacecraft. The influence of contaminants outgassed from epoxy resin on the spectral transmittance of the quartz substrate was investigated with an in-situ measurement system. The system can deposit the contaminants on temperature-controlled quartz substrates and the transmittance spectra were measured immediately after deposition in vacuum ambient. We tried to obtain the optical constants of the contaminant using transmittance spectrum and simple optical models for optical calculations. The optical constants were described with a harmonic oscillator model and the effective medium approximation model. This paper reports the in-situ measurement results of transmittance spectra of the epoxy-resin-induced contaminants. In addition, the result of optical calculations using the obtained optical constants were compared to the measurement results.
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