OUTGASSING EXPERIMENT ON A SATELLITE COMPONENT USING BAKE-OUT CHAMBER

摘要

Satellite components can be contaminated in the process of manufacturing, transporting, and handling of the components. Under orbit environment in space which is characterized as a high vacuum with severe solar beam, the contamination material is outgassed and sticks to the other surface of satellite, such as optics and solar cells. As a result, the satellite is deteriorated in its important function and hence cannot achieve the designed mission. To avoid such unfavorable situations and exert the best performance of the satellite, degassing process should be performed for components and subsystems of the satellite under high vacuum condition with hot temperature for a specified period of time. In this paper, outgassing experiment was carried out for a development model (DM) of solar panel for Korea Multi-purpose Satellite (KOMPSAT-II) using the bake-out chamber, which consists of vacuum system, thermal system, and measurement system. Temperature and pressure of the chamber was maintained around 120°C and 10{sup}(-5) torr, respectively. Residual gases including H{sub}2O, N{sub}2, O{sub}2, CO{sub}2, H{sub}2 were detected and outgassing rate of total contaminant was also measured. This paper aims to introduce and review the contamination control process for a small satellite, especially in the case of KOMPSAT-II application.