The 10-months LEO flight (low Earth orbit) and subsequent January 1996 return to Earth of the first Japan space environment utilization, the SFU (Space Flyer Unit) provided an opportunity for us to examine the effects of space exposure on various materials of the SFU. Aromatic polyimide MLI blanket (multilayer insulation) was one of the major polymeric material, covering the outer surfaces of the SFU. By visual inspection of the SFU returned, it was observed that most of surfaces of polyimide MLI lost their golden shining color and became opaque with signs of contamination and degradation. For understanding the 10-months filght of the SFU in LEO, the flight and control polyimide MLI specimens were characterized by chemical, physical and thermomechanical techniques including visible and infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermal analysis (TG, DSC), SEM (scanning electron microscopy), XPS, ESCA (x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and optical properties measurements. Preliminary results exhibited that characterized effects were found to be primarily surface phenomena, indicating the heavy contamination of silicon derivatives. The exposed surfaces projecting into space were changed to the rugged by synergistic effects. Although the surfaces of exposed polyimide MLIs showed typical of the 'Christmas tree' morphology as previously reported, the decreases in thickness in these outer layers were only less than 2 micron, suggesting the protection effect by silicon-containing contaminant against atomic oxygen.
A study on polyimide MLI of the ten months flown space flyer unit
1997
7 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 8 Quellen
Conference paper
English
A study on polyimide MLI of the ten-month flown space flyer unit
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