Atomic oxygen and atomic oxygen-induced processes are responsible for the deterioration and failure of polymers and other carbon-based materials in the LEO space environment. Motivated by demands for product and process improvements and by increasingly stringent restrictions on material's use in LEO, ground-based atomic-oxygen testing systems have been developed in many laboratories to address and solve scores of material problems. Over the last decade, industrial and research organizations have shown an increased interest in utilizing facilities that can simulate pure atomic oxygen beams, solar ultraviolet radiation and thermal cycling.

The approach to be developed involves the design and creation of a facilty - MUSE (Material Usage Space tEsting)- for simulation of the comprehensive effects of various factors of the LEO space environment on spacecraft materials and evaluation of the materials durability and lifetime in laboratory conditions but at real space flight conditions. 

The MUSE Simulator can be used to expose the test samples to combined or individual factors of the LEO space environment, i.e. ultra-high vacuum, variable-energy neutral Atomic Oxygen beams, VUV/NUV radiation, thermal conditioning and thermal cycling in a wide range of temperatures. The simulated space environmental conditions are controlled in-situ using a Quadruple Mass Spectrometer (QMS), Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) sensors, a Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor, and UV photodiodes/sensors.

Besides, the MUSE chamber will have a number of spare vacuum ports that can be usedlater to install additional irradiation sources simulating the LEO and GEO space environments (i.g. a Microwave AO Plasma Source, an AM0 and AM1.5 Solar Simulator, a Proton Source, an ElectronSource, etc.), as well as a number of analytical equipment for in-situ measurement and monitoring ofoptical, chemical, and morphology parameters of the materials during exposure in the MUSE chamber, weight and erosion mass loss, etc.