Abstract
As space travel matures and extended duration voyages become increasingly common, it will be necessary to include arrays of early fire detection systems aboard spacefaring vessels, space habitats, and in spacesuits. As gasses that are relevant to combustion and pyrolysis have absorption features in the mid-infrared range, it is possible to utilize absorption spectroscopy as a means of detecting and quantifying the concentration of these hazardous compounds. Within this work, a sensor for detecting carbon dioxide has been designed and tested autonomously on a high-altitude balloon flight. The sensor utilizes a 4.2-μm light-emitting diode source, amplitude modulation to characterize species concentrations, and frequency modulation to characterize ambient temperature. Future work will include expanding the sensor design to detect other gases, and demonstrating suborbital flight capability.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 28-36 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | New Space |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2018 |
Funding
Research at the University of Central Florida (UCF) was supported by financial assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA COE-CST) with Ken Davidian as program manager, Florida Space Institute (FSI), NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC), the UCF Mechanical and Aerospace Department, and the UCF Office of Research and Commercialization. Z.L. thanks NSF GRFP for partially supporting this effort. The authors would like to thank Dr. Robert Peale (UCF) for assistance with environmental chamber tests. This material is based on work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technology Office, program managers Gur-preet Singh and Ken Howden, under contract number DE-AC05-00OR22725. Notice: This article has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC0500OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Gov- ernment retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this article, or allow others to do so, for the United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/down loads/doe-public-access-plan).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Federal Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation | |
| Florida Space Institute | FSI |
| NSF GRFP | |
| UCF Mechanical and Aerospace Department | |
| UCF Office of Research and Commercialization | |
| UT-Battelle | |
| Vehicle Technology Office | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Florida Space Grant Consortium | |
| Office of Science | |
| Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy | |
| Federal Aviation Administration | |
| University of Central Florida |
Keywords
- LED
- absorption spectroscopy
- amplitude modulation
- crew health monitoring
- fire detection
- frequency modulation
- hazard avoidance
- infra-red
- primary life support
- space