Evaluation of Thermo-Optical Properties of Black Thermal Control Polyurethane Coating and the Effect of Atomic Oxygen on the Coating

The interaction of atomic oxygen with materials may result in surface erosion, changes in chemical composition and surface morphology, changes in optical properties and formation of particulate and molecular contamination of the spacecraft surfaces. In this paper in addition to evaluation of thermo-optical properties of black polyurethane thermal control coating the effect of atomic oxygen on surface erosion, chemical composition, surface morphology and optical properties were investigated by FTIR, SEM, spectroreflectometer and infrared reflectometer. The results of thermo-optical properties evaluation indicated that these coatings had the absorption equal to 0.991-0.948 and the emission equal to 0.834-0.857 that these absorption and emission quantities were similar and some cases better than conventional black thermal control coatings. Polyurethane coatings had relatively weak resistance to atomic oxygen and suitable for satellites in orbit with an altitude of more than 35000km.