Blind Test Performance of the ESA FTIR-Based Multi-Component Monitoring System for Spacecraft Air Analysis

Through the last decade ESA (European Space Agency) have developed a TGM (Trace Gas Monitoring) system for spacecraft air analysis from paper study to a fully operational breadboard [1–9]. The TGM system is a combination of FTIR spectrometry and specially developed analysis techniques. Ongoing work aims at a system flight experiment on e.g. the Space Shuttle early in 2003 [10].

This paper mainly covers the application of the TGM breadboard for a competitive blind testing on unknown multi-gas mixtures arranged by NASA. The TGM HW was applied as is, but a special calibration for the NASA test scenario was made. Four different system suppliers competed in the testing, and the ESA TGM system performed clearly best [11].

This independently defined and supervised testing has confirmed that the ESA TGM system is reliable to perform quasi-real time gas measurements in the concentration ranges required by ESA. It remains to demonstrate that the even lower detection limits required by NASA can be covered through emphasis on improved sensitivity.