Spacecraft is in a harsh environment in space. Their surface are exposed to energetic and/or reactive particles as electrons, ions, protons, oxygen atoms, and ultraviolet light during space missions. In this study, the influences of ion bombardment on chemical and optical properties of spacecraft insulators were investigated. The spacecraft insulators, such as polyimide films and solar cell cover glasses, were bombarded to oxygen and nitrogen ions with energies in the range of 0.5-1.0 keV and doses between 6.8 × 10~(15) and 8.2 × 10~(16) ions/cm~2. For ion bombarded polyimides, the in-situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and quadrupole mass spectrometer analyses snowed that an addition reaction and a desorption of components caused the chemical structural changes. Furthermore, the spectral transmittance of the films was decreased by the ion bombardment. However, there are almost no chemical structure and optical property changes of solar cell cover glasses due to ion bombardment at the energy level of 0.5-1.0 keV.
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