Molecular fluxes from a spacecraft measured with quartz microbalances

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Abstract
A technique has been developed to obtain a characterization of the self−generated environment of a spacecraft and its variation with time, angular position, and distance. The density, pressure, outgassing flux, total weight loss, and other important parameters were obtained from data provided by two mass measuring crystal microbalances, mounted back to back, at a distance of 1 m from the spacecraft equivalent surface. The main results from this thermal model of a spacecraft indicate the following: The strongest source appeared to be caused by a material diffusion process which produced a directional density at 1 m distance of about 1.6×1011 molecules cm−3 after 1 h in vacuum and decayed to 1.6×109 molecules cm−3 after 200 h. Self contamination of the spacecraft was equivalent to that which occurs in a 300−km altitude orbit.

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