Spacecraft Atmospheric Monitor on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Spacecraft Atmosphere Monitor (S.A.M.) is a highly compact gas chromatograph mass spectrometer ( GCMS) instrument built by
The Spacecraft Atmosphere Monitor (S.A.M.) is a highly compact gas chromatograph mass spectrometer ( GCMS) instrument built by JPL
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States.
Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...
that is a technology demonstration on the International Space Station for monitoring the cabin atmosphere in human spacecraft. S.A.M. measures both the major constituents (e.g. nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide) and trace parts per billion volatile chemicals (e.g. benzene, ethanol, siloxanes
A siloxane is a functional group in organosilicon chemistry with the Si−O−Si linkage. The parent siloxanes include the oligomeric and polymeric hydrides with the formulae H(OSiH2)''n''OH and (OSiH2)n. Siloxanes also include branched compound ...
)in the spacecraft cabin atmosphere to ensure the help safeguard the health of the astronauts. S.A.M. has a total mass of 9.5 kg and uses 40W (nominal) during operation.
S.A.M. is an advanced technology demonstration that can be employed on future crewed flight missions, like in the Artemis program and the Orion spacecraft. It was launched to ISS on a Dragon spacecraft on July 25, 2019, and began continuous operations on July 29, 2019. S.A.M. was returned to earth aboard SpaceX-25 on Jan. 24, 2022 after almost two years of continuous operations aboard the ISS, exceeding its design lifetime goal of one year. The instrument was returned to JPL on Feb. 15, 2022.
This first S.A.M. instrument will be refurbished and be flown, along with a second S.A.M. unit, to ISS in late 2022. The two instruments operating at the same time will enable JPL scientists to continuously monitor the ISS cabin atmosphere for interesting or anomalous constituents and temporal or spatial variations in the cabin atmosphere.
See also
*Human spaceflight
Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...
References
{{reflist International Space Station Artemis program Spacecraft instruments