Paper
27 October 1998 Contamination of the GOES-K filter wheel cooler
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Sounder instrument uses radiant coolers to reduce the operating temperature of the detectors and filter wheel. GOES resides in an equatorial orbit 36,000 kilometers above the earth, and is stationary with respect to it. During the year, all sides of the spacecraft are exposed to the sun; the filter wheel emitter and detector radiators must be shielded form it to adequately cooled these components for nominal operations.Mirror Optical Solar Reflectors are used too reject sunlight before it can strike the radiators. Molecular outgassing from the Sounder instrument cavity, the filter wheel module, and the Sounder vacuum cooler housing have been demonstrated through mass transport modeling to contaminate the filter wheel sunshield panels during the in- orbit Radiant Cooler bakeout. Excessive molecular and particulate contamination can increase solar energy scatter, increase thermal emittance, and increase solar absorptance; all of which can increase the temperature of the components they serve, thus degrading nominal operations. After the GOES-K spacecraft thermal vacuum test, a haze was observed on and around the entrance aperture, and on the inside faces the filter wheel cooler sunshield. This paper documents the inspections, testing, and analysis used to: a) locate the likely sources for the contaminants, b) predict molecular contaminant accumulation on the filter wheel sunshields during the in-orbit bakeout, c) estimate the thermal effects from molecular build-up, and d) assess proposed hardware modifications and show the selection rationale used to maintain functionality for the GOES-K Sounder instrument.
© (1998) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Jack T. Sanders Jr. and Glenn P. Rosecrans "Contamination of the GOES-K filter wheel cooler", Proc. SPIE 3427, Optical Systems Contamination and Degradation, (27 October 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.328491
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KEYWORDS
Contamination

Space operations

Optical filters

Air contamination

Electronic filtering

Inspection

Mirrors

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