Flight Acceptance Standard Testing

Led by analytical and technical personnel, the laboratory is equipped with the following test chambers and support equipment to support odor and offgas testing:

• Four trained and certified analytical chemists to identify and quantify all offgassed products.

• Analytical capabilities include:

  1. Two Gas Chromatographs (GC) equipped with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) detectors and mass spectrometers (MS) for detecting and quantifying offgassed inorganic and organic compounds.

  2. One GC equipped with a Flame Ionization Detector (FID) for detecting and quantifying offgassed organic compounds.

  3. One GC equipped with a methanizer coupled to a FID for detecting and quantifying carbon monoxide and methane.

  4. One GC equipped with a thermal conductivity detector (TCD) for detecting and quantifying hydrogen.

• Simulated-use testing conducted in two airtight gloveboxes.

• Handling of electrostatic discharge (ESD) components. Class 1 ESD protective workstation available. Handling of electrostatic discharge (ESD) components.

• Capability to test small to very large materials and components. A large array of offgassing chambers to fit most any size material or test article (2 L through
  86700 L) are maintained for testing. Our largest offgassing chamber is the CVI® self-heating cylindrical offgassing chamber. This chamber is 1.83 m (6 ft) in diameter and 2.74 m (9 ft) long. This chamber can achieve vacuums as low as 1.33 Pa (1 × 10-2 torr), with a temperature range from ambient ~ 21 to 93 °C
  (70 to 200 °F).

• Thermal conditioning capabilities range from ~21 to 316 °C (~70 to 600 °F). Five thermal conditioning ovens (incorporating multiple temperature measurement systems) are connected to an automatic alarm system to notify personnel of power outages and/or temperature nonconformities. Ovens can handle the entire size range of sample chambers.

• Odor Test Panel maintained and tested for odor testing (Test 6). An “Odor Mission” is conducted by five certified odor panel members under the direction of an Odor Panel Test Conductor. These five odor panel members are selected randomly out of a pool of all odor panel members and their sense of smell tested to ensure sensitivity.

• On-site state-of-the-art test article/material preparation and analytical laboratories with full sample preparation, measurement, thermal conditioning, and chemical analysis capabilities are maintained.

• A secure, limited-access storage area for spaceflight items and other high cost/importance items is utilized.

• Direct test data entry and storage into a secure, laboratory information and tracking system that automatically generates the reports for review and transmittal is maintained.

• Validated software programs for performing data reduction (utilizing electronic data transfer to eliminate transcription errors) can be operated.

• Materials and equipment to handle heavy and bulky articles up to 909 Kg
  (2000 lb) (heavier with prior notification), are available. In addition to a full rack, sized to hold test articles in the 3 m (10 ft) by 1.8 m (6 ft) chamber.