CONTINUOUS REAL-TIME MONITORING OF SIZE AND MASS OF PARTICLES GENERATED BY GAS-GRAIN CONVERSION PROCESSES

AN INNOVATIVE, AEROSOL-PARTICLE SAMPLING SYSTEM WILL BE DEVELOPED TO MEET THE STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS OF NASA'S MICRO-GRAVITY, PARTICLE-RESEARCH EXPERIMENTS IN THE GAS-GRAIN SIMULATION FACLILTY (GGSF). THE SYSTEM IS ESPECIALLY SUITED TO THE EXOBIOLOGY FLIGHT PROGRAM'S MEASUREMENT REQUIREMENTS. BY USING INERTIAL SEPARATION OF AEROSOL PARTICLES INTO DESIRED SIZE GROUPS, A PROCESS NOT INFLUENCED BY GRAVITY, AND WEIGHING THE SIZE-SEGREGATED PARTICLES BY PIEZO-ELECTRIC MICROBALANCE (WHICH IS ALSO INDEPENDENT OF GRAVITY), THIS MEASURING DEVICE CAN MONITOR, IN REAL TIME, THE PARTICLE AND GAS-PARTICLE PROCESSES IN 6 OF 20 EXPERIMENTS IN THE GGSF. IT IS PARTICULARLY USEFUL FOR THE EXPERIMENT ON PREBIOTIC PARTICLE FORMATION IN A SIMULATED. TITAN ATMOSPHERE, BECAUSE THE TECHNIQUE RETAINS THE MEASURED PARTICLES FOR PHYSICO-CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. AN INNOVATIVE, AEROSOL-PARTICLE SAMPLING SYSTEM WILL BE DEVELOPED TO MEET THE STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS OF NASA'S MICRO-GRAVITY, PARTICLE-RESEARCH EXPERIMENTS IN THE GAS-GRAIN SIMULATION FACLILTY (GGSF). THE SYSTEM IS ESPECIALLY SUITED TO THE EXOBIOLOGY FLIGHT PROGRAM'S MEASUREMENT REQUIREMENTS. BY USING INERTIAL SEPARATION OF AEROSOL PARTICLES INTO DESIRED SIZE GROUPS, A PROCESS NOT INFLUENCED BY GRAVITY, AND WEIGHING THE SIZE-SEGREGATED PARTICLES BY PIEZO-ELECTRIC MICROBALANCE (WHICH IS ALSO INDEPENDENT OF GRAVITY), THIS MEASURING DEVICE CAN MONITOR, IN REAL TIME, THE PARTICLE AND GAS-PARTICLE PROCESSES IN 6 OF 20 EXPERIMENTS IN THE GGSF. IT IS PARTICULARLY USEFUL FOR THE EXPERIMENT ON PREBIOTIC PARTICLE FORMATION IN A SIMULATED. TITAN ATMOSPHERE, BECAUSE THE TECHNIQUE RETAINS THE MEASURED PARTICLES FOR PHYSICO-CHEMICAL ANALYSIS.