System for Detecting Hazardous Gases at Multiple Locations

The Hazardous Gas Detection System 2000 (HGDS 2000) is the latest in a series of instrumentation systems for detecting gases leaking from a space shuttle on a launch pad. The HGDS is a fully redundant system that includes analog and digital electronic control circuitry and a sub- system for sampling gases at multiple locations and delivering the samples to two independent commercial quadrupole mass spectrometers. [The sampling subsystem was described in “System for Delivering Gas Samples to Multiple Instruments” (KSC-12123), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 6 (June 2001), page 60.] The system is rugged enough to withstand the launch-pad environment, is easy to operate, and can be fully automated. When in automated operation, the system notifies an operator if an unusual situation or a fault is detected. An operator interacts with the system via a personal computer by use of mouse and keyboard commands. Operation of the HGDS 2000 is expected to take substantially smaller amounts of operators’ time and to cost substantially less, relative to operation of the older instrumentation systems in this series. Although the HGDS 2000 is optimized for detecting leaking spacecraft-propellant gases, it can also be used to detect many other gases.