STUDYING THE PHENOMENON OF CONTAMINATION ON SMALL SPACECRAFT

The paper considers the negative impact of the spacecraft's own atmosphere on its external devices and the manifestation of a less studied contamination phenomenon, which has no less harmful effects on the spacecraft's internal components and devices. The formed layers of contaminants with a thickness of only a few nanometers can significantly worsen the transmission characteristics of optical devices. To study the phenomenon of contamination, it seems very important to determine the thickness of the films of sublimated substances over time. The authors propose a device for studying the phenomenon of internal contamination. The operation of the proposed device is based on measuring the resonant oscillation frequencies of a crystal resonator acting as a sensor responding to changes in the mass of an increasing film of contaminants. The proposed device is promising for spacecraft since the quartz resonators used in its base are resistant to vibration, and the module itself has small dimensions and weight, which makes it possible to place it on CubeSat standard spacecraft.