| Autor: |
Maldonado, C., McHarg, G., Asmolova, O., Andersen, G., Rodrigues, S., Ketsdever, A. |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
AIP Conference Proceedings; 2016, Vol. 1786 Issue 1, p1-8, 8p, 3 Diagrams, 5 Graphs |
| Abstrakt: |
Spacecraft operating in low-Earth orbit (LEO) are subjected to a number of hazardous environmental constituents that can lead to decreased system performance and reduced operational lifetimes. Due to their thermal, optical, and mechanical properties, polymers are used extensively in space systems; however they are particularly susceptible to material erosion and degradation as a result of exposure to the LEO environment. The focus of this research is to examine the material erosion and mass loss experienced by the Novastrat 500 polyimide due to exposure in a simulated LEO environment. In addition to the polymer samples, chrome, silver and gold specimens will be examined to measure the oxidation rate and act as a control specimen, respectively. A magnetically filtered atomic oxygen plasma source has previously been developed and characterized for the purpose of simulating the low-Earth orbit environment. The plasma source can be operated at a variety of discharge currents and gas flow rates, of which the plasma parameters downstream of the source are dependent. The characteristics of the generated plasma were examined as a function of these operating parameters to optimize the production of O+ ions with energy relevant to LEO applications, where the ram energy of the ions due to the motion of the satellite relative to the LEO plasma is high (e.g. 7800 m/s, which corresponds to approximately 5 eV of kinetic energy for O+ ions). The plasma downstream of the source consists of streaming ions with energy of approximately 5 eV and an ion species fraction that is approximately 90% O+. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Databáze: |
Complementary Index |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
