Simulation of the Physicochemical Effect of Atomic Oxygen of the Earth’s Ionosphere on Polymers

Abstract

A procedure has been developed for simulating the long-term effect of atomic oxygen (AO) of the Earth’s ionosphere on spacecraft polymers in a rarefied plasma flow using Kapton H polyimide as a reference material. The condition for the equivalence of the effect of AO on polymers in the ionosphere and at a test bench is the equality of the mass loss. When Kapton H is bombarded with atomic oxygen ions having energies of 30–80 eV, the mass loss due to chemical etching is two orders of magnitude higher than in the case of kinetic sputtering, and the AO fluence and the acceleration factor of tests on the bench are two orders of magnitude higher than in a 5-eV atomic oxygen beam.