MANHASSET, NY -- NASA’s Langley Research Center is evaluating high-speed InGaAs photodiodes sent in a rugged flight-worthy suitcase to the International Space Station (ISS) in one Space Shuttle flight in 2009 and returned to Earth in another Space Shuttle fight in 2011 and is finding them surprisingly robust.
The components, manufactured by Discovery Semiconductors, were part of the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) 7 mission launched on the Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-129) on November 16, 2009, and returned on the Space Shuttle Endeavor (STS-134) on June 1, 2011. NASA’s Langley Research Center launched them as part of their LIDAR transceiver components and recently released them to Discovery Semiconductors for further study.
LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) can measure the distance to, or other properties of a target by illuminating the target with light using pulses from a laser.
"MISSE 7 has given us a great opportunity to study these InGaAs photodiode and balanced photodiodes which went through the STS-129 launch, 18 months of stay on ISS, and then re-entry back to earth on STS-134," said Narasimha Prasad, Aerospace Technologist, at NASA Langley. "We have started post flight tests on these devices, and our preliminary analysis shows the InGaAs photodiodes have been surprisingly intact under the influence of UV, radiation, as well as thermal cycling in space."
“A suitcase shaped, rugged, flight-worthy box known as Passive Experiment Containers (PECs) is used to transport the selected materials to and from the ISS," said Prasad.
MISSE 7 package consisted of two sections, 7A and 7B. PEC 7A’s orientation is zenith/nadir (space facing/earth facing), while PEC 7B faces ram/wake (forward/backward) relative to the ISS orbit. NASA Langley sent a package with several LIDAR transceiver components on PEC 7B; Discovery Semiconductors' two photodiode modules were part of this package facing wake side, primarily used to study for UV and radiation exposure effects.
The MISSE 7 mission was managed by the NASA Glenn Research Center with Naval Research Laboratory, Boeing, and NASA Langley playing significant roles.
“I have worked on space missions before, but the devices launched rarely come back to earth, as most spacecrafts get destroyed in the atmospheric re-entry after their missions are over" said Abhay Joshi, President and CEO of Discovery Semiconductors.
The privately-owned company, which provides high-performance components for ultra-wide bandwidth applications in the telecom and aerospace industries, will be studying over the next few months the electro-optical characteristics of the returned InGaAs photodiodes, as well as other parts of the modules, and use the data for future space flights.
Previous：
Next ：