The onboard equipment of the ROS, as well as the equipment of other spacecraft, will be protected from overheating and premature failure by a heat-regulating coating.
Today, paint and varnish heat-regulating coatings, which reflect or absorb sunlight, are used to protect equipment in space. Their main disadvantage is their low resistance to the effects of space factors, which, according to estimates by domestic and foreign experts, cause more than 50% of failures and malfunctions in spacecraft.
Ceramic-like coatings obtained on aluminum alloys by microarc oxidation, according to our technology, in addition to the necessary thermo-optical characteristics, have high resistance to such destabilizing factors of space, such as erosion and the effect of atomic oxygen in orbit at an altitude of approximately 400 km from the Earth's surface, since they consist mainly of γ-Al2O3 and α-Al2O3 (corundum) - a thermodynamically stable form of aluminum oxide.
This method of obtaining coatings has a lower formation temperature compared to analogues, and it is import-independent. It will be equally applicable to small satellites and on board the Russian Orbital Station - ROS.
Analogues of the MAI development exist in the world, but the developers assure that it is more resistant to the destabilizing factors of space than foreign options. A patent has already been obtained, and a space experiment on the ROS is planned to test the properties of coatings obtained by the proposed method. These experiments are included in the work plan for the ROS.
MAI is also currently working on creating effective heat sinks from the onboard equipment of the ROS. The process is at the stage of engineering development of a space experiment involving designers, materials scientists, and technologists.
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