Reducing the Specular Properties of Metalized Teflon Coverings on Canadian Mobile Servicing Station on the International Space Station

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20535/2521-1943.2021.5.3.249629

Keywords:

the specular properties, metalized teflon, servicing station

Abstract

A surface modification process was developed for the metalized Teflon coverings used for thermal protection of electronic equipment on the International Space Station [1]. The developed modification process of Teflon surfaces reduced substantially the specularity of Ag-Inconel coated Teflon thermal control films by changing the morphological appearance of their surfaces by ion-beam texturing in a controlled manner from a metallic-like and shiny to complete milky, white appearance without significantly affecting the thermal optical properties.

A number of space hardware units covered with the textured Silver-Teflon were exposed to the open space environment between June 2002 and June 2006 and delivered back to Earth at the end of 2006. Remarkable performance was demonstrated by the treated Ag/Teflon, with the solar absorptance and total emittance values and the α/ε ratio remaining very close to the original values as measured before the flights [2].

In an attempt to protect further the textured surfaces of Teflon from possible erosion by atomic oxygen and VUV in LEO environment, an additional novel surface modification process was developed that created an SixOyCzFn type of structure on the treated surface. The textured Teflon samples before and after surface treatments were tested in a space simulator facility under a combined atomic oxygen/vacuum ultraviolet exposure.  A number of advanced characterization techniques were used to evaluate the properties of the modified films [3].

References

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Published

2021-12-27

How to Cite

[1]
J. Kleiman, “Reducing the Specular Properties of Metalized Teflon Coverings on Canadian Mobile Servicing Station on the International Space Station”, Mech. Adv. Technol., vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 294–301, Dec. 2021.

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 3 (2021)

Section

Aviation Systems and Technologies

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