Preface

Abstract

The 15th International Symposium on Materials in the Space Environment (ISMSE) and 13th International Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures from the Space Environment (ICPMSE) took place 18-23 September 2022 in a special venue, the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the beautiful city of Leiden (the Netherlands). This joint conference was attended by about 210 participants from 25 different countries worldwide.We are now happy to present to you the final version of the conference proceedings. This unique collection includes 42 original scientific papers in a variety of fields, including:• Contamination modelling, applications and monitoring,• Low / Very low Earth orbit (LEO/VLEO),• Lunar environment and dust,• Clean Space and sustainability,• Flight experiments,• Radiation and synergistic effects,• Innovative materials and processes,• Ground facilities and testing,• Long-term storage.The papers reflect well the topics discussed during the conference.To maintain the high quality of the papers, we used a single-blind peer-review process, established within the framework of the Morresier platform provided by IOP. Moreover, all papers are now assigned DOIs and published open access online by IOP.The papers resulted from at least 4 years of work since the last ISMSE conference. Some authors are contributing to several papers as they actively work in several research subgroups and supervise multiple student projects. In each case all authors have contributed to all mandatory aspects: substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and final approval of the version to be published; agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.We hope you find the proceedings informative and we look forward to more exciting high-quality research publications in the future as part of the forthcoming ISMSE-16/ICPMSE-14 event.ISMSE Proceedings Editorial Board:Malgorzata Holynska (Chair, ESA/ESTEC)Adrian Tighe (ESA/ESTEC)Elisabeth Laurent (CNES)Jacob Kleiman (ITL INC)Sophie Duzellier (ONERA)Timothy Minton (University of Colorado Boulder)