Standards Development

Scope

This international standard intends to establish a guideline for the ground-based environmental tests of thermal control materials (TCMs) used on spacecraft’s surface. This standard describes the test methods of charged particle radiation(s), solar ultraviolet (UV), atomic oxygen (AO) and thermal cycling. Typical TCMs include, but are not limited to, coatings, optical solar reflector (OSR) and metallized plastic films. Other materials, for which similar requirements apply, can refer to this standard. This international standard is devoted to material estimation/evaluation tests and can be tailored according to specific applications.

Purpose

Spacecraft TCMs are functional materials used to control spacecraft temperature within design operation limits, by controlling the thermo-optical properties of exposed surfaces. When applied to the surface of spacecraft, TCMs are exposed to a severe space environment, which causes degradation of the properties of TCMs. In order to make sure that the performance of TCMs is within design operation limits, environmental testing on TCMs is required. For use onboard spacecraft, TCMs performance is evaluated in relevant simulated environments including charged particle radiation(s), solar UV, AO, and thermal cycling, with parameters depending on spacecraft orbit. The purpose of this standard is to specify the environmental test methods that should be used for experiments simulating the space environment effects on TCMs.

The key benefits this standard proposal brings are that it lets the users understand the detailed test methods to be used and establishes a test program/procedure more efficiently. It also formalizes the writing of test documents. By doing these, it can minimize unnecessary arguments caused by different understandings present in existing regional standards.

Potential companies/organizations which could be interested in this standard are CAST, Dupont, Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, NEC, UBE Industries Ltd., MAP, Debcor Industries, Multek Flexible Circuits, CNSA, NASA, ESA, JAXA, SIDC/CAS, SIC/CAS, Excelitas Technologies, Italian CREO, 3M, etc.