Other
Scientific paper
Jan 1992
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992phdt........24z&link_type=abstract
Thesis (PH.D.)--UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, 1992.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: B, page: 1415
Other
Scientific paper
The visible and infrared environment at surface of an outgassing spacecraft in low earth orbit was noted as "space vehicle glow" as early as the 1980's. Studies of the interaction of the large-scale outgas cloud from an orbiter platform with the ambient upper atmospheric environment led to predictions of the possibility of sufficient energy transfer to IR action molecules to produce the possibility of volume IR emission around the platform. An infrared radiation model (IR model) has been developed to study the excitation of water molecules, a major constituent of the vapor cloud surrounding manned spacecraft, by collisions with atmospheric atomic oxygen and molecular nitrogen. In this work, the cylindrical symmetry about a spacecraft's velocity vector is assumed, and the effects of gravity are neglected. Chemical reactions and effects of the vehicle's surfaces are also neglected, and solar and Earth-shine excitation are not considered. The excitation energy (average internal energy ~0.5 eV for H_2O 6.3-mu m band) with respect to the relative collision energy (~2.7 eV) is neglected. The collision energy and momentum are assumed to be conserved in the collision process. The collisional cross section dependent on the collision energy and the scattering angle is used, and the velocity-distribution functions of the interacting neutral gases obtained from the neutral gases interaction model are used to calculate the productions of water excitation states. The excited water molecules are allowed to traverse a distance determined by their velocities after collision and their lifetime until they spontaneously emit an infrared photon. Using the Maxwellian average approximation for water molecule velocity-distribution, the production of the excitation and subsequent emission of IR photons from the large-scale gas cloud as a function of position and their azimuth angle from the orbital platform are presented. The results from various sets of atmospheric and outgassing conditions are presented, and the dependence of the structure and brightness of the emission on outgassing rates and altitudes is discussed. Also, a comparison of these results with some other related works and with the measured radiance levels from the space shuttle flight 51-F has been made.
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