At 14: 22 on July 24th, the Long March V B-3 carrier rocket carrying the Inquisition module was ignited and launched at Wenchang Space Launch Site in China, and the launch was a complete success. A series of special functional protective coatings/thin films developed by Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, China Academy of Sciences “escort” the experimental capsule “ask heaven”. The candlestick experimental module is a part of the Tiangong of China Space Station, with a scale of 20 tons, which is mainly oriented to space life science research. Academician Xue Qunji and researcher Wang Liping from the Key Laboratory of Marine New Materials and Applied Technology of Ningbo Institute of Materials, Chinese Academy of Sciences undertook the research and production tasks of multifunctional integrated coating for anti-corrosion and anti-bacteria of environmental control and life support system in the experimental cabin, high reliability and high toughness and life extension film of the inter-cabin air pump, and anti-radiation damage and low environmental sensitivity film of flexible solar wing extension mechanism.
In the face of the national task, the project team took the initiative to carry out the mission, faced difficulties and worked together. After repeated scheme demonstration and technological innovation, a large number of experiments and scientific analysis, and a series of reliability tests, it provided a strong guarantee for the successful launch of the candlestick experimental module and contributed to the construction of China’s space station.
Environmental control and life support system is a complex system in the space station cabin, which is related to the life safety of astronauts and whether they can complete the space mission. The surface protective coating of cabin components should have the functions of flame retardant, antibacterial, mildew proof, wear resistance and corrosion resistance, and all technical requirements are far higher than civil aviation standards. The research team led by senior engineer Liu Shuan and engineer Guo Xiaoping has systematically designed the resin, functional filler and supporting system for two years and conducted hundreds of experiments, which have overcome the key technologies such as strong combination of light alloy and glass fiber composite surface protective coating, multi-functional integration and anti-aging yellowing in the cabin. The functional protective coating of space station environmental control and life support system has been successfully applied to 10,000 toilets, heat sealing mechanisms, medical information integrated management systems, medical equipment power management devices, air return vents and diffusers, food heating devices, etc.
The inter-cabin air pump is used in the pressure control system of the node cabin and airlock cabin of the space station, which can pump the air in the cabin before the extravehicular activity to the adjacent sealed cabin to save oxygen resources. It is the core equipment to ensure the astronauts and cargo in the space station to get out/into the cabin. For the dry vacuum pump of the space station, the research team led by researcher Du Yujie and researcher Pu Jibin has broken through the interface strengthening technology of high-toughness thin film on titanium alloy surface, the technology of long-life anti-impact and anti-fatigue, and the technology of uniform and low-stress controllable preparation of rotor precision profile, and solved the bottleneck problems of high damage and abnormal failure of gears, rotors and other components under the working conditions of weightlessness in space, high speed and repeated start-stop impact. Through the life-span test on the ground, the developed film with high reliability and high toughness has been successfully applied to the space station and the core module before, and also used for the air pump in the airlock module of the experimental module of Kaitian and Mengtian, which will be launched today and later, to ensure its high stability, reliability and long service life in orbit.
China Space Station has adopted the advanced triple-junction GaAs solar flexible battery wing, and its stretching mechanism is extremely complex. High reliability service in extremely harsh space environment is the key to the normal operation of the space station and the success or failure of its mission. Sputtering thin films by the solar wing extension mechanism of the space station is facing the challenge of high humidity and heat environment emitted by Wenchang coastal area and long-term on-orbit high dose atomic oxygen irradiation. The research team led by researcher Pu Jibin and Wang Hai Xingao successfully solved the common problems of performance deterioration and early failure of protective films under humid environment and atomic oxygen irradiation through innovative technologies such as composite regulation of functional elements, nano-multilayer fine structure construction and crystal orientation control. The radiation-resistant film with low environmental sensitivity (won the Silver Award of the National Patent Award) has passed the environmental exposure adaptability in Wenchang, 15-year accelerated irradiation test of high-dose atomic oxygen and thermal vacuum fatigue life test, and has been successfully applied to more than 20,000 parts of the flexible solar wing extension mechanism of the space station, including the space station experiment module, to ensure that it is “relaxed, freely retractable” and “foolproof” during its on-orbit service for more than 10 years.
(Source: Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau)