Abstract
This paper presents partial results from Phase II (Technology Development) of a multi- year project on the protection of polymeric materials in the low Earth orbit (LEO) environment, which has been pursued under the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) Strategic Technologies for Automation and Robotics (STEAR) 6 program. The approach that evolved from Phase I (Feasibility Study) consists of (a) a thin ( ≤0.5 μm) plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) SiO2 coating as the primary protection, together with (b) surface fluorinating the underlying polymer. This combined protection is applied to full-scale spacecraft components such as Kapton® thermal blankets. In the present paper, we only deal with aspects relating to PECVD coating of 50 urn thick Kapton polyimide film, and assessing the performance of the coated polymer, in accordance with requirements set by the CSA.
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Czeremuszkin, G., Wertheimer, M.R., Cerny, J., Klemberg-Sapieha, J.E., Martinu, L. (1999). Plasma-Deposited Coatings for the Protection of Spacecraft Materials Against Atomic Oxygen Erosion. In: Kleiman, J.I., Tennyson, R.C. (eds) Protection of Materials and Structures from the Low Earth Orbit Space Environment. Space Technology Proceedings, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4768-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4768-2_12
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