A Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer for Detecting a Point of Air Leakage from a Spacecraft Module

摘要

The possibility of using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer for determining a point of air leakage from a spacecraft module is discussed. A procedure for carrying out ground experiments in a vacuum chamber is proposed for artificial simulation of the composition of the intrinsic external atmosphere of the spacecraft. The described mass spectrometer is capable of detecting leakages of small-concentration gas flows with a high level of confidence.