According to CCTV News, experiments conducted on the Chinese Space Station include those performed inside the station, while others require external execution. The Chinese Space Station’s material exposure experiment device, which has been exposed outside the cabin since March 8, 2023, has completed a full year of in-orbit experiments. On March 14, the device and the first batch of over 400 material samples successfully concluded the external exposure experiment and were returned inside the space station.
The first batch of materials exposed outside the cabin includes both non-metallic and metallic types, totaling 407 samples. Non-metallic materials include shape memory polymers, lunar soil reinforcement materials, solid lubricants, and gel composite lubricating materials. Metallic materials include magnesium alloys, porous copper materials, etc. The research related to these materials can advance the space application of materials for large space deployable structures such as flexible solar wings, space mechanism lubrication materials, lunar base construction materials, and neutron shielding materials for precision electronic devices.
All segments of China’s Space Station, manned spacecraft, cargo spacecraft, relay satellites, and the Long March series rockets used to launch these spacecraft are developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, with other subsystems of the project also involving units affiliated with the Aerospace Science and Technology Group.
The retrieval of samples was carried out by the space station’s robotic arm. At about 21:00 Beijing time on March 14, the material exposure experiment device and sample assembly installed outside the Wentian module were transferred inside the space station’s airlock chamber. On March 15, astronauts moved the retrieved assembly from the airlock chamber to the Mengtian laboratory module. With remote assistance from ground-based scientific personnel, the scientific experiment samples inside the device were disassembled and stored. Subsequent experiment samples will be returned to Earth on the Shenzhou spacecraft and handed over to scientists for further ground-based research.
A new batch of scientific experiment samples will be sent to the station in stages, including passive radiation cooling materials, polyimide fiber materials, fiber materials, and optical thin film materials, which have been transported to the space station with the Tianzhou-7 cargo spacecraft. In May of this year, astronauts plan to install these materials into the external exposure experiment device outside the material cabin to commence a new round of exposure experiments.
[Source – 上海有色网] 中国空间站首批镁合金、多孔铜材料等材料舱外暴露实验完成 已成功取回 https://news.smm.cn/news/102667341
