Latest Outgassing Stories

ESA The BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) Mechanical and Propulsion Bus (MPB) Proto-Flight Model (PFM) has been baked out in the Phenix thermal vacuum facility at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. This process involved heating the MPB to 60 °C in a vacuum for 20 days to remove any contaminants that would outgas in space. Given the extremes of temperature to which BepiColombo will be exposed – in excess of 350 °C on the...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Many of us enjoy that ‘new car smell’ and the connotations it imparts, despite the fact that it’s created by outgassing—an unhealthy process for both humans and sensitive instruments. Many sensitive instruments that are susceptible to outgassing can be found onboard NASA satellites and a team of NASA engineers has developed a way to mitigate the damage that it causes, according to a statement from the agency. Creation...

Arizona -- An international team of planetary scientists may have solved the mystery of why the atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan, is rich in methane. Methane, which on Titan plays a role similar to water on Earth, is locked in a methane-rich water ice that forms a crust above an ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia, the scientists say. Major episodes of outgassing pumped methane into Titan's mostly nitrogen atmosphere three times during the moon's evolutionary history, they...