About this Research Topic
Operating in the space environment has long been known to be a significant challenge. Damage to spacecraft from radiation, plasma, atomic oxygen, outgassing, and contamination can put missions at risk and significantly reduce mission lifetimes. Extreme temperatures experienced by spacecraft require advanced materials and thermal protection systems that can operate in reduced gravity or microgravity conditions.
As space technologies expand to service ever more complex missions such as a permanent human presence on the Moon, on-orbit manufacturing, and on-orbit repairs of existing missions, the challenges of the extreme space environment are as relevant as ever. New approaches, new materials, and new prediction methods through testing and simulation are required to ensure future space technologies can withstand the harsh environments needed for complete mission success at reduced mission costs.
Current techniques to protect from radiation are costly, involving heavy masses for shielding or radiation hardened components. For lower budget satellite programs, this is often beyond their capabilities and radiation protection is neglected, significantly reducing mission lifetimes.
Operations on the lunar surface are not only exposed to direct solar wind and radiation, but also experience extreme temperature changes between day and night. Dust contamination of surfaces and moving parts add significant challenges.
On-orbit manufacturing and servicing of spacecraft extends usable mission durations. New materials used and modified material properties from manufacturing in a micro-gravity environment may react in different ways to the space environment than those currently used. The new materials and components used must therefore be shown to be able to withstand the environmental effects for the extended mission durations.
Ground-based testing methods often focus on short-duration tests with results extrapolated to longer mission times. While historical data somewhat helps to confirm testing suitability, as new technologies and materials are developed new testing methods, including accelerated testing, may be necessary to ensure mission confidence.
This research topic invites papers from all facets of research into space technologies operating within the harsh space environment, in particular:
- Environmental effects of the space environment on space hardware
- Development of hardware, materials, or components specifically adapted for or designed for use in harsh space environments
- Improvements to current ground-based environmental testing methods
- Improvements to current space environment simulation approaches
As space technologies expand to service ever more complex missions such as a permanent human presence on the Moon, on-orbit manufacturing, and on-orbit repairs of existing missions, the challenges of the extreme space environment are as relevant as ever. New approaches, new materials, and new prediction methods through testing and simulation are required to ensure future space technologies can withstand the harsh environments needed for complete mission success at reduced mission costs.
Current techniques to protect from radiation are costly, involving heavy masses for shielding or radiation hardened components. For lower budget satellite programs, this is often beyond their capabilities and radiation protection is neglected, significantly reducing mission lifetimes.
Operations on the lunar surface are not only exposed to direct solar wind and radiation, but also experience extreme temperature changes between day and night. Dust contamination of surfaces and moving parts add significant challenges.
On-orbit manufacturing and servicing of spacecraft extends usable mission durations. New materials used and modified material properties from manufacturing in a micro-gravity environment may react in different ways to the space environment than those currently used. The new materials and components used must therefore be shown to be able to withstand the environmental effects for the extended mission durations.
Ground-based testing methods often focus on short-duration tests with results extrapolated to longer mission times. While historical data somewhat helps to confirm testing suitability, as new technologies and materials are developed new testing methods, including accelerated testing, may be necessary to ensure mission confidence.
This research topic invites papers from all facets of research into space technologies operating within the harsh space environment, in particular:
- Environmental effects of the space environment on space hardware
- Development of hardware, materials, or components specifically adapted for or designed for use in harsh space environments
- Improvements to current ground-based environmental testing methods
- Improvements to current space environment simulation approaches
Keywords: Space environment, extreme environments, in-situ operations, environmental protection, environmental testing
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
