Sensors for spacecraft cabin environment monitoring
- Paper number
IAC-05-A1.6.03
- Author
Mr. Jeremy J. Ramsden, Cranfield University, United Kingdom
- Year
2005
- Abstract
It is very necessary, in manned spaceflight, to ensure that essential variables, including concentrations of oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapour and volatile organic contaminants, are maintained within acceptable limits. Furthermore, the purity of drinking water etc. must at all times be assured. Moreover, for lengthy voyages, the proliferation of bacteria and other microörganisms may need to be monitored. Here we present a platform approach to these problems based on multiplexed planar optical waveguides sensitized to the different analytes by coating them with thin-film capture layers of bionanomaterial composites. The laboratory experiments described in this contribution use grating couplers to measure the lightmode spectra of the waveguides in the presence of the different analytes, but prototype devices for actual spacecraft use are based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, with which higher relative, but not absolute, sensitivities are achievable. Results are presented for water and ammonia vapours in the atmosphere, iron contamination in water, and Escherichia coli in water. The in situ accumulation of material from air or water is characterized with high sensitivity and excellent time resolution. It is a very great and novel advantage that the same technology, and hence the same data processing and diagnostics procedures, can be used over this vast range of analytes.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-05-A1.6.03.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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