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Integrity Testing Laboratory (ITL) developed coatings and surface treatments that include prototypes of multifunctional coatings with charge-dissipative and dust mitigation properties, including Lunar dust Work Function Matching Coating (WFMC) that can be applied to surfaces of various space materials [1]. Selected samples were flown on MISSE-17 Material Experiment, to evaluate their resistance to space environment factors like thermal cycling, vacuum, VUV and atomic oxygen.
Two thermal control materials, i. e a 1 mil KaptonHN with a doped DLC on it and an aluminized 1 mil KaptonHN with a DLC film on it were selected for the ram direction. For the wake position, a doped DLC on a 1 mil aluminized KaptonHN and a doped DLC on a silver-coated Teflon FEP were selected, to check the influence of both the thermal cycling and UV exposure. In addition, two samples of Lunar dust Work Function Matching Coating (WFMC) on Kapton HN ( WFMC/Kapton) were prepared and added, one in ram direction and one in wake direction.
The MISSE-17 Experiment was launched from Kennedy Space Center on March 15, 2023 [2] and returned on SpX-29 flight in December 2023 [3]. Samples faced atomic oxygen fluence of ~8.0E+20 atoms/cm² in ram direction and 3.76E+18 atoms/cm² in wake direction over 145 days and 157 days, respectively.
The data on changes in major characteristics of the flown samples will be presented and discussed.
1.J. Kleiman, et al (2022) Regolith adherence characterization (RAC) experiment on the Moon and it's ground-based simulation: Materials Issues, Joint International Conference on Protection of Materials from Space Environment, ISMSE15/ICPMSE13 , 18 -23 September, 2022 Leiden, The Netherlands, https://iopscience.iop.org/issue/1757-899X/1287/1
2.https://news.satnews.com/2023/04/11/aegis-aerospace-celebrates-commercial-dod-payloads-in-space/
