Source of Fast Oxygen Atoms for Testing Satellite Materials

We have developed an apparatus that generates a pulsed beam of fast oxygen atoms, under Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to provide a ground test facility to qualify materials to be used in low Earth orbit (LEO). This development was in response to a number of early space-shuttle observations of material erosion and property change resulting from interaction with the LEO atmosphere, which is predominantly monatomic oxygen. These interactions occur at orbital speeds ≈8 km/s. To our knowledge, ours is the only system that provides a high-flux beam of neutral oxygen atoms with wide-area operating capability at the desired speed of 8 km/s. Sets of materials (2.5-by-2.5-cm samples) have been simultaneously bombarded by 8-km/s oxygen atoms at fluences of up to 6 ×1021 cm -2 in our facility.