The production of glow precursors by oxidative erosion of spacecraft surfaces
Abstract
Erosion rates of organic materials are measured during a recent flight of the shuttle (STS-8). Several forms of carbon and a variety of thermosetting and thermoplastic polymers are exposed to the ram beam of atomic oxygen. Arrhenius energies of about 1000 to 2000 cal/mole were measured from the rate dependencies on temperature. If some simple assumptions are made about the chemical nature of the desorbed species, the data can be used to estimate production rates at surfaces in orbit under different conditions of temperature, oxygen atom flux, and material surface conditions.
- Publication:
-
Spacecraft Glow
- Pub Date:
- September 1985
- Bibcode:
- 1985scgl.work..174G
- Keywords:
-
- Atomic Excitations;
- Beam Interactions;
- Collision Parameters;
- Erosion;
- Luminescence;
- Metal Films;
- Oxide Films;
- Oxygen Atoms;
- Reaction Kinetics;
- Scattering;
- Space Shuttle Orbiters;
- Temperature Effects;
- Thermoplastic Resins;
- Thermosetting Resins;
- Diamonds;
- Disks (Shapes);
- Glassy Carbon;
- Graphite;
- Long Duration Exposure Facility;
- Niobium;
- Oxygen Afterglow;
- Single Crystals;
- Sputtering;
- Instrumentation and Photography