Investigation into Tolerance of Polysiloxane-Block-Polyimide Film against Atomic Oxygen
- Paper number
IAC-08.C2.6.6
- Author
Dr. Eiji Miyazaki, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan
- Coauthor
Dr. Masahito Tagawa, Kobe University, Japan
- Coauthor
Dr. Rikio Yokota, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan
- Year
2008
- Abstract
Silicon containing polyimide is proposed for achieving high tolerance against Atomic Oxygen (AO) for Low Earth Orbit flight. The material is commercially available Polysiloxane-Block-Polyimide film “BSF-30,” which is not developed for space use. For evaluation, AO beam was irradiated on the BSF-30 at the Combined Space Effects Test Facility in Tsukuba, Japan. In order to investigate the AO tolerance, mass change measurement and X-ray photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) analysis were performed. The results clearly showed that BSF-30 has quite high tolerance against AO. XPS analysis reveals that the composition of the surface changes from methylsiloxane into SiO2 by AO irradiation. The formed SiO2 plays a role of AO protective layer. These results suggest that BSF-30 has a potential to provide a lot of advantages especially for LEO spacecrafts, because the BSF-30 does not require AO protective top coat such as brittle inorganic layer. In addition, the film is more reliable than other coated films; the AO protective layer is made from BSF-30 itself and AO. Because of such mechanism to form the protective layer, it also has “self-healing” function, i.e., another protective layer can be formed in case of cracking or removal of the first-built AO protective layer. Then another SiO2 can be formed where BSF-30 is exposed. In this presentation the detail experimental results of AO irradiation on the BSF-30 film are presented.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-08.C2.6.6.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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