The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was launched by the space shuttle in April 1984 and recovered in January 1990. It housed 57 experiments containing more than 10,000 specimens to test the effects of the space environment on materials, components, and systems. Originally planned for 1 year, the exposure actually lasted almost 6 years.
Aerospace was involved with LDEF from its initial conception and planning. Aerospace researchers designed, assembled, and integrated one of the most comprehensive experiments onboard, M0003, which exposed numerous spacecraft materials, in use or in development, to the low Earth space environment. M0003 was a collection of 20 subexperiments and was a collaboration of Aerospace, Air Force, and Navy laboratories as well as some spacecraft contractors. Aerospace served as principal investigator in addition to having its own experiments onboard. When LDEF was brought back to Earth, Aerospace documented and disassembled M0003 and analyzed many of the material specimens. There were more than 1275 samples on the M0003 experiment alone.
|
|
|
| NASA | ||
The data obtained in LDEF analyses have confirmed that most of the models used to predict the effects of the space environment on materials are satisfactory. LDEF generated valuable information on long-term materials performance in orbit and provided significant insights into spacecraft thermal control, contamination control, and the combined effects of ultraviolet radiation and atomic oxygen on spacecraft materials.